


heaven is a place on earth

by roxast



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 80s AU kinda, A little bit of everything tbh, Alternate Universe - Roller Derby, Angst, Black Mirror AU, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Drama, F/M, Falling In Love, First Time, Fluff, Hospitalization, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Miscommunication, Other, Romance, Science Fiction, i'm hesitant to tag this major character death, i'm trying not to tag anything for spoilers lmao, lots of Viktor being cheesy af, lots of music references!!!, mentions of major accidents, roller skating rules that only half exist, san junipero au, time travel au kinda????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-09-18 17:03:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9394778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roxast/pseuds/roxast
Summary: when you walk into the roomyou pull me close and we start to moveand we're spinning with the stars aboveand you lift me up in a wave of love[Or: the Black Mirror AU where it's 1987 and Yuuri, a man on a search in the hustling, bustling party town of San Junipero, crosses paths with another tourist and local celebrity, Viktor, beginning a relationship that transcends time and space.]





	1. in this world we're just beginning

**Author's Note:**

> When I think of two pieces of media that saved my gay ass in 2016, I think Yuri!!! On Ice and the San Junipero episode of Black Mirror, let me tell you. 
> 
> I was inspired to write this fic because of this AWESOME piece of 80's-esque fan art here: http://kayshasiemens.tumblr.com/post/155686584721/shameless-repost-for-the-weekday-crowd 
> 
> There's also another San Junipero AU Viktuuri fic, which might be more your speed if you're here for the smut (which like if that's why you're here i'm sorry lmao) and not the sci-fi: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8754442/chapters/20068186
> 
> Finally, while I'd like to recommend "San Junipero" out the wazoo because nothing makes me happier than wlw and 80's aesthetics, it's like the only "nice" episode of Black Mirror and still can be somewhat heavy--I tagged the trigger warnings pretty well but if you have any more questions, comments, concerns, etc, feel free to pay me a visit at punkmomsclub.tumblr.com, or my Yuri on Ice sideblog (more like dumping ground lmao) yuriidavaii.tumblr.com. You don't necessarily need to watch it before you see this but like wow I cannot recommend it enough. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (check the end of the chapter for referenced songs!"

Right, left. Right, left. Right, left.

He’d been knocked out of his concentrated trance after a pair of pretty girls, hand-in-hand, bumped into Yuuri without much of a thought and continued to frolic, giggling as they passed him along the sidewalk. They’d pushed him just so, so that his line of vision took his attention off of the one-two, one-two of his feet below him, and onto the glow of neon lining all the way up as far as his vision could see, painting the happy parties of people in overtones of pink and blue. To his right, just past another row of shops and bars and trendy apartments was peeps and cracks of the ocean; to his left in the shop window, box televisions, like the one he and his sister would spend hours in front of on Saturday mornings, stacked on top of each other, broadcasting the same music video in unison. Yuuri must’ve been walking too slow, he decided.

But he did have to admit, it was all rather _real_ , wasn’t it?

Another group of chatty young adults brushed past him, at least one turning around to shoot him an eyeroll, so Yuuri took it upon himself to dip into the closest establishment available in the hopes of blending in, an even crazier idea —enjoying himself. Getting half a look at the name _Celestino’s_ before taking a few more steps and sliding inside, Yuuri was yet again made out to be wallpaper, as two rather handsome men glided past him before he himself could cross the street.

“Viktor, come on,” bemoaned one, walking backwards and batting his long eyelashes as he tried for his companion’s hand. “I just want to have some fun, is that so wrong?”

The other man pulled his hand back, swift and graceful. The sequins and sparkles on his jacket shoulders shone with every vague movement, although Yuuri couldn’t quite see his face from this angle. “I’m still walking, Christophe,” he said, his accent thick and his tone close to something nearing on exasperation.

“We’ve only got a few hours left, why don’t we,” a half-gloved hand suddenly snaked around the waist of the purple faux-jacket, tugging him closer, “use them.”

Before reaching the door handle of Celestino’s, Viktor turned around with a small smile for his companion, and Yuuri got an eyeful of tousled grey hair gently hiding lovely blue eyes, looking in many ways distantly familiar in a way he likely wouldn’t be able to recall. “I am using them,” the man said with a shrug, before dipping into the bar, his pursuer at his feet, not far behind him.

Apparently not enough to deter him, Yuuri followed suit.

The bar itself was like something designed by John Hughes—beautiful young couples in miniskirts and shoulder pad blazers, denim jackets and Tommy Hilfiger, bangles and swatch watches swayed and popped in time with the loud music playing overhead. Lit along the black brick walls were neon palm trees and beach scenes, the mirror paneling reflecting the lights and club-goers like puddles on the pavement. Yuuri scanned the room, deciding somewhat quickly that dancing was out of the question, before noticing an extra row of bar seats in the back, overlooking a roller rink.

Drawing a faint smile at something vaguely familiar, Yuuri made his way over to an empty swivel seat, watching the same two girls that’d passed him earlier, the black-haired girl tossing her well-hair sprayed locks over her shoulder as she dragged along her red-headed companion.

“You wanna go around?” piped up an eager voice to Yuuri’s left. Turning, it appeared to belong to a younger guy with two-toned hair, who was perhaps a bit too young looking, enhanced only by his Mickey Mouse T-shirt and bright red tennis shorts. “It’s a lot of fun by yourself, but I gotta say, it’s not as much fun as skating with a partner!” he exclaimed, managing a volume almost too loud, despite the fact the room they were in could hardly contain its own sound.

Out of the corner of his eye, Yuuri watched one of the girls wipe out almost painfully on the paneled wooden floor. He winced, immediately shaking his head. “Oh no,” he said, much faster than he’d wanted, “Thank you.”

Noticing the incredibly disappointed look that fell on the boy’s face, Yuuri followed up. “I—uh—I’m just trying to get my bearings a bit. See you around?”

The boy’s face, nearly in-time with the change in music overhead immediately brightened in a strange, ferocious optimism. “See you around then!” he smiled, before bouncing off.

_“Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna feel? Won’t someone tell me? Whatcha wanna say, whatcha wanna do? I guess there’s just one thing to do~”_

Yuuri had hardly a moment to himself when in replacement of the darling youngster who’d just been at his side, sat the handsome grey-haired man from earlier, his bejeweled purple jacket unmistakable as he placed his drink down, his frown pressed and deep. His name, unfortunately, escaped Yuuri too quickly.

“Go along with whatever I say,” he whispered, scooting his stool closer to Yuuri’s, voice dipping somewhere much lower and earthier than it’d been earlier just outside Celestino’s.

“I-I’m sorry?”

The man slid a hand around Yuuri’s shoulder like they’d known each other for ages, his eyes coming to meet Yuuri’s in a moment of understanding; Yuuri held his breath, noting the closeness of their faces and the light freckles along his nose. “Whatever I say, just go along with it, hm?” he said again, with a smile that Yuuri thought looked rather pulled and practiced.

He’d simply nodded, so lost in the man’s eyes that he’d hardly noticed the other man from earlier strutting up behind them, adjusting his studded black blazer before shoving his hands into his pockets, looking just short of desperate. Eyes suddenly closing, Yuuri’s supposed friend spun just enough without removing the hand from his back. “Alright Chris, this is getting to be a little much, isn’t it? I don’t have to red light you, do I?”

Chris sighed before licking his lips. “Two hours and thirty-five minutes, Viktor. There’s not much time—”

“ _Christophe._ ”

“Last week, did we not have the most amazing time?”

Viktor shrugged again, Chris’ efforts clearly rolling over him like water. “Last week was last week. I’m just looking to talk to my friend here,” on rhythm, he clapped Yuuri on the back; Yuuri gave Christophe a small wave. “It’s been a while, you see.”

Christophe crossed his arms now, one eyebrow raising in disbelief.

“Chris,” Viktor said emphatically, dropping his volume into something like a stage whisper. “He’s sick. Something like nine months to live, the doctors say.”

“Eight,” Yuuri piped up, and both men turned to look at him now, incredulous. He looked back at Viktor and cleared his throat once. “It’s eight months, actually.”

Chris sighed rather dramatically again, clearly unhappy with his predicament as Viktor faced him with new sureness. “I just want some time to catch up. You know. Private time.”

Giving them a short _humph_ , Chris turned on his heel, ready to leave. “Alright, but if a good time is what you want, you know where to find me,” he shrugged. “And my genuine condolences, for your situation,” he said to Yuuri, and Yuuri could tell he actually kind of meant it. Chris gave them a dull wave over his shoulder before disappearing into the cloud of dancers.

Yuuri and Viktor breathed out in relief almost in unison, Viktor sliding his hand off of Yuuri’s back.

“Sorry I, erm, killed you off there,” Viktor swiveled in his chair now to face Yuuri, body posture much more comfortable now that Chris had scampered off, tail between his legs. “Although, I have to admit, eight months instead of nine? Nice touch.”

Yuuri, still too focused perhaps, on the hand-shaped heat on his upper back, simply stuck out his hand with a smile. “I’m Yuuri.”

“I’m Viktor.” Viktor, whose real smile was just a bit crooked and who clearly had a sharp taste in jackets, although a dubious taste in friends, Yuuri thought, his heart beating just a bit faster than he’d experienced in a while.

“He’s not a bad guy, Chris,” Viktor said suddenly, nonchalantly gesturing back towards the door. “Really a pleasant guy, although I suppose I did meet him down at the Chacked, so—”

“What’s the Chacked?” asked Yuuri, getting something of a double look from Viktor.

“If you don’t already know what the Chacked is, it’s probably best to keep it that way,” he replied, tracing the rim of his glass thoughtfully before pointing to it. “You want something?”

Yuuri shook his head. “I probably shouldn’t—”

“Oh, of course you should,” Viktor stood up, scanning the room with some curiosity, leaving Yuuri to watch in awe. He was something straight out of the high fashion magazines his sister used to have scattered on her bedroom floor—all effortlessness and jawline, long fingers and strong, heavy-set features. Everyone in San Junipero was beautiful, that much was certain, but Yuuri was still wrestling with the fact that he had _this_ beautiful man’s attention, and, now, his face in front of his hand.

“I don’t have to carry you, do I?” Viktor grinned; Yuuri took his hand, pushing down a blush as he was led through the warm fuzz of the crowd towards the bar where a pretty woman with short, spunky hair was washing out glasses behind a shimmering blue counter.

“Good evening, Isabella,” Viktor beamed, turning back on the charm he had when Christophe had been hanging around. “Always a pleasure to see you.”

Eyes hiding somewhere beneath a solid shade of fuchsia lit up and Isabella batted her lashes with some facetiousness.  “Viktor! Oh, you’re too kind to me,” she laughed as she pulled out two matching glasses to set in front of the pair of them. “The regular?”

“Ah, let’s go with a Rum and Coke for me and my friend here,” Viktor replied, nodding with some effortlessness towards Yuuri, who tried to give Isabella some sort of nonverbal indicator that no, no alcohol, I probably don’t need it, thank you.

She didn’t exactly notice. “Uh-huuuuh,” Isabella purred, giving Yuuri a quick up-and-down. “You know, you’re in the presence of a bit of a local celebrity, right?”

Yuuri raised his eyebrows, feeling like he had to sneak a gaze over towards Viktor, whose face was colored with some shade of sheepishness.

“You think he’s Mr. Tall-and-Charming now, wait ‘til you see him in a pair of skates—wow,” Isabella gave another girlish laugh as she poured and stirred. “There’s another competition next Saturday. JJ and I will see you there, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” said Viktor with a gentle smile. Isabella passed them their drinks and cheerfully wished them a good night before heading over to the next customers. Turning then towards Yuuri, their knees almost touching at the bar, Viktor held out the glass as though he’d done this exact movement with this much grace a thousand times. “Cheers.”

Yuuri returned the gesture, and in a rare moment of here-goes-nothing, tossed the glass back, momentarily surprised by the harsh feeling he was met with in the back of his throat. He could’ve sworn the brief, but awfully painful silence that followed was due to his own inability to make decent, casual conversation, but after his first two, three, sips (gulps) of Isabella’s liquid courage, Yuuri turned towards Viktor only to find Viktor staring back at him, eyes flowing up and down much slower than Isabella’s just had.

His gaze shifted from the glass to the table to Viktor’s nail polish to back to his hands. “What’re you looking at?”

“You,” said Viktor, simply.

Yuuri gave a short, nervous laugh. “I feel like I’m under a microscope.”

“Don’t— I’m just, I suppose, regarding you,” Viktor returned his attention back to the rim of his glass, making circles with his finger again, and again—“Those glasses real?” he asked.

A beat or two of the song passed before Yuuri could bring himself to admittance. “No,” he shook his head again, pulling the thin and circular wire frames from his face to hold up. “I mean, they are, but the lenses aren’t.”

“I knew it!” Viktor exclaimed happily, pointing at him like it’d been a secret all along.

Yuri couldn’t help but smile as he conceded. “I just used to wear them most of the time, so I guess I kept it up now as a…comfort thing?”

“I like them, they really work for you, I think. I thought maybe they were some sort of fashion statement,” said Viktor.

“Pfft, really?”

“Unlike the rest of your outfit.” Yuuri immediately looked down at his number: crewneck sweater with the collar of his pale, striped button down sticking out, khaki shorts and Keds? Next to Viktor’s hip-hugging leather pants, smooth, dark nail varnish, and of course, that spectacular jacket, he supposed he had perhaps under-dressed for the occasion.

His face must’ve gone red enough that Viktor’s expression flipped from vaguely vapid to vaguely distressed, “I—I mean don’t get me wrong! It’s refreshing to see someone around here who doesn’t look exactly like everyone else,” Viktor turned his attention off of Yuuri to scan the room again, leaving him to mimic. “No one looks how they want to, they dress how they think they should. Like they saw in a movie or show, but those glasses? I like them. They’re just for you. Authentic,” Viktor said with a somewhat decisive nod as he seemed to see something else in the throes of dancers, where Yuuri only saw people enjoying the rhythm and enjoying each other. “Although, you probably wouldn’t care what I thought of them anyway, right?”

“Right,” Yuuri agreed, perhaps a little too fast, his wry smile growing as Viktor gave him a quick, thick laugh.

_"Wish me love a wishing well, to kiss and tell."_

“You don’t live here, do you?” Viktor asked with some doubt; Yuuri shook his head and answered with a firm negative. “Tourist, then?”

“Sort of?” Yuuri offered rather noncommittally and Viktor nodded in understanding. “Uh, we can go with tourist?”

“New tourist?”

“First night.”

“First night?” Viktor’s entire face lit up, just in time with the heavy drumbeat of a new track. “Well then, we ought to make it count right?” He downed the rest of his drink with little effort before rising to his feet, taking a moment to savor what was clearly a favorite song. “I don’t know about you, Yuuri, but I’m think we have to dance to this.”

Yuuri did a double take between Viktor and the crowd before asking with an only half-hidden hesitancy, “with each other?”

“Right,” Viktor agreed, crooked smile growing.

“I don’t think I can.”

“I don’t think we should limit ourselves here.”

“I’m going to look dumb.”

“Just follow my lead,” again with the hand, and before he knew it, Yuuri was being lead to the dance floor, the heat and sweat of the bodies around him rising as he did his best not to feel foreign.

Viktor wasn’t the best dancer, believe it or not—he had, clearly, come to have fun, and his familiarity with the moves and effortless body movement certainly gave off enough of an impression that he was a great dancer. His shoulders, his hips kept up with the time as Yuuri made an attempt or two to turn away, to avoid contact, to be somewhere else.

“Copy me!” Viktor yelled, throwing him an encouraging smile; Yuuri mirrored the steps and shakes as best he could. Without his knowing, a smile crept up on his face, and perhaps, grew a little wider as Viktor pulled him closer.

_"You’re a fake—baby—you can’t conceal it."_

And in the blink of an eye, Yuuri went from having fun, to just _not_.

He wanted to enjoy this, he really did, but it wasn’t long before he fell back into the stream of right- left. Right-left. Right-left. And here was Viktor, entertaining his every clumsy move like he had something to offer, and oh no, people were watching. Watching them. The two of them. Together. Thinking what? People were watching and Yuuri hadn’t drunk enough to not care.

On a turn in the music, the ocean of eyes facing away from him now, Yuuri dipped out of the crowd towards a blinking exit sign while Viktor’s back was turned. He pushed past body upon body before nearly slamming into the door and opening it just enough to exit through the crack and back out onto the rain-soaked pavement, reflecting the neon lights much like the glass paneling inside of Celestino’s.

Yuuri, catching his breath, hesitantly stuck a hand out from beneath the dry protection of the awning above him. He hadn’t expected that—rain in San Junipero.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a feminine-looking figure with short, dark hair and a cigarette walk past the alley, moving as briskly as the rain fell, short heels clicking all the way and Yuuri felt his stomach churn. He’d almost tripped on a stray bottle, running to get a better look, mind racing as he wondered if it could possibly be—

“Hey, why’d you run away?” called Viktor, who must’ve slipped out the same door just behind him. Yuuri stopped in his tracks, the raindrops clinging to his glasses, making it hard to see clearly. He turned to glance at Viktor, arms crossed meekly beneath the shade of the awning, and then back towards the figure, who had disappeared back into the night.

“I—uh—have a history of embarrassing myself on the dance floor,” Yuuri stuttered, regaining his thoughts as he went to join Viktor back under the dry. “I didn’t want to push it.”

“Sorry for pushing you in,” Viktor offered, apologetically. “Although if it’s any consolation, you were anything but embarrassing.”

Yuuri went red again as Viktor tried to find the right words. “It’s just—five hours, once a week? It’s almost no time, I can be impatient. So, sorry?”

“No, no, no it’s not that. I just get,” Yuuri sighed, glancing solely at his feet “Self-conscious, when people stare like that.”

“People were staring?”

“You didn’t notice?”

“No,” Viktor shrugged, sliding his thumbs into the tops of his pockets. “Probably because if they did, they, one— _weren’t_ , or two—staring because you can dance, my friend. Really, I’m impressed.”

Yuuri looked up, making eye contact with Viktor like he had to give himself permission. “You’re ridiculous,” he whispered, leaning back into the brick wall behind them.

Proudly, Viktor did the same. “Why, thank you.”

The rain hit the ground a few moments longer; Yuuri let them past without feeling like he was in complete pain. “I used to dance, actually.”

“What style?”

“ _Ballet_ , believe it or not,” Yuuri snorted.

“Wow, really? I could never get a hold of ballet — it takes too much discipline, I presume,” said Viktor.

“Not like, roller skating, right?” And Viktor let out another thick laugh.

“Roller skating—it’s something alright. I dunno, I guess I just needed something to keep me busy while I’m here, and Celestino’s has these sort of contests once a month where people perform and there’s roller derby and everything—”

“I’ve never been roller skating,” said Yuuri. “Is it anything like ice skating?”

Viktor’s eyes glazed over and Yuuri’s eyebrows furrowed as he tried to decipher if he’d suggested something insulting. It passed quickly, however, as Viktor pressed his lips together and hummed, thinking. “I don’t know; probably not,” he offered, laughing a little. “Never tried roller skating, then?”

“Never tried a lot of things,” Yuuri scoffed. “Didn’t have much of a chance, really.”

“Well, y’know,” Viktor shifted just an inch or two along the wall, closer to where Yuuri stood. “San Junipero is a party town—a lot to see, a lot to do, all up for grabs.”

Viktor’s words to a turn for the slow and Yuuri didn’t know how to respond, like something was caught in the back of his throat as he watched Viktor’s gaze rise slowly to meet his. “Is there anything you’d like to do? That you’ve never done.”

“Oh, uhm,” Yuuri paused thinking and thinking and piling up a mental list before deciding on simply “so many things.”

Viktor’s voice got deep and earthy again, like it had back inside and the change left Yuuri frozen still.

“Midnight’s two hours away,” a hand, slow and study, rested and slid down Yuuri’s thigh. “Why waste time sitting here?"

It wasn’t that _that_ wasn’t on the list, it just, well, it just—

Yuuri’s breath hitched as he searched frantically for words, forcing out a steady flow of _uhs_ , _ums_ , and _Is_ as he launched off the brick wall just past Viktor’s reach. “Listen, I—”

Viktor simply shook his head. “It’s okay.”

“No, really, I mean…”

“It’s okay,” Viktor assured, tone calm and convincing, but Yuuri wasn’t satisfied, bumbling and stuttering until he finally found an excuse.

“I’m engaged,” he said, finally, watching Viktor’s eyebrows fly up into his hairline. “Phichit. My fiancé. Really nice.”

Victor looked around, not dubious as much as he was perplexed. “Aaand is Phichit here?”

“No, uh…”

“Elsewhere?”

“Yes…”

“Alright, wanna go to bed with me?” Yuuri’s eyes flew open wide at the proposition, Viktor’s gaze over him seeming to intensify while he managed to look nothing but cool and collected. “I mean, we could be back at mine in—” Viktor snapped his fingers.

Yuuri considered it for one, singular second before realizing he was maybe wringing his hands a little too roughly. “No, I—uh. I can’t.”

Viktor shrugged. “Alright. No worries.”

“No, what I mean is—you’ve been really, really nice, but I just can’t.”

“I get it,” Viktor smiled, disarmingly relaxed.  

“I, uh, I should go…”

“In the rain?”

“It was nice meeting you,” Yuuri bowed, immediately feeling self-conscious _because Viktor wasn’t Japanese and what if he took it the wrong way and—_

Viktor gave a deep bow in return, like he was bowing to Cinderella in front of her carriage and not some dork he’d just met in a bar. “And you.”

Face beet red and his Keds nearly soaked through, Yuuri trailed off. “Okay…bye.”

Yuuri wouldn’t have noticed, but Viktor turned as he left, watching him walk huddled, but determined in the rain. Yuuri was too busy, internally wrestling with what had been a completely irrational and asinine idea that he’d entirely wanted to pursue. Swearing under his breath, he turned just as he hit the sidewalk, just as he changed his mind—but Viktor was no longer there.

Yuuri spent the rest of the night hiding in a dinor, empty mostly, except for the two girls he’d seen earlier, sharing a piece of apple pie and doing their best not to nod off. Scattered by the window past the fake potted plants were magazines and periodicals, almost all of which he scanned through, the most recent being dated March 1987.

When he awoke the next morning, Phichit asked him excitedly how it’d been, what it was like, if he’d met anyone, in that voice of his that never seemed short of excited. Yuuri answered everything in as great of detail as he could—it all being so strange but so familiar and so fast and actually kind of fun for a few moments when he hadn’t clung so tightly to his inhibitions or thought too long about where he’d recognized certain things, and yeah, he did meet this guy, who was kind of familiar, and he—oh…

 _Oh_.

It’d been a while, to say the least, since Yuuri’s feet had last touched the ice, a pinch longer since he’d moved out of his childhood home, but it’d just occurred him, just then, that the Viktor who’d tried to put the moves on him last night was Viktor Nikiforov. He, Yuuri Katsuki, had met Viktor Nikiforov. The ice skater. The one that Yuuri had looked up to for most of his life both figuratively and literally, when he recalled exactly how many posters he’d had of that man growing up. Had it been so long he couldn’t even recognize him? The tremendously well-decorated and world-renown ice-skater, Viktor Nikiforov, had tried to take him, Katsuki Yuuri, to bed. Had so obviously flirted with him. Last night. Him. In San Junipero. Yuuri, who he was.

Oh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs played at Celestino's:  
> "C'est La Vie"- Robbie Nevil  
> "Wishing Well"- Terence Trent D'arby  
> "Fake"- Alexander O'Neil


	2. to understand the miracle of living

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mmmm smell that? The sweet, sweet smell of cheesy, fluffy melodrama. 
> 
> Check the end notes for referenced songs!

—ONE WEEK LATER—

It wasn’t weird that he already knew where Viktor would be tonight, right? No, no, too late now, and overthinking couldn't delay him any further. He’d already spent an obscene amount of time trying to decide what he was going to wear (what does one wear to roller skate? What? Yuuri hoped the answer was _exactly_ what he wore last week, minus the sweatshirt and adding a stone-wash jean jacket, in a half-hearted effort to blend in) He was just stalling at this point, honestly, despite the fact that he’d put an awful lot of thought into this entire ordeal. An _awful_ lot, a whole week’s worth in fact. Went far above and beyond the typical pros-and-cons list that came with any of his important decisions, that much was certain. And now he was here, gonna go for it. Ignore all his responsibilities, everything he’s ever known about the kind of painfully timid, awkward person he was, for a night with Viktor Nikiforov. Yep. That’s right. He, Katsuki Yuuri, was gonna march on into Celestino’s and go for it.

_Oh boy._

His racing thoughts, in the end, weren’t enough to stop himself, and it seemed no time at all to relocate the entrance to Celestino’s just before the sun began to set into the ocean. Unlike last week, thankfully, the sky was clear, pink and orange and red without a cloud in sight. 

Just inside, the scene was a bit different from what he’d remembered— the lights were on, the dance floor was near empty, black-and-white checkered tiling actually visible. Outside of the bar area, where Isabella and another grave-looking bartender were mixing and serving drinks to a growing line of patrons, almost all of the noise and action was centered at the far end of the dancefloor, around the swivel stools and the roller rink. That, he was sure, was where he needed to be.

_“Might as well face it, you’re addicted to love.”_

Yuuri did his best to push through the handsy greetings and the animated dialogues between the regulars, making his way to the drop-off onto the wooden floor, where a few competitors were already warming up under an old disco ball—men and women in skin tight pants and leg warmers, Nike shirts and windbreakers, bulky geometric jewelry and bows.

Out of the corner of his eye, Yuuri recognized the shape and stature of one Viktor Nikiforov.

“Viktor!” At the sound of his voice, the grey head of hair turned from his conversation to scan the wall of people, brows furrowed until finally found Yuuri in the crowd. Viktor’s change in expression upon seeing him turned eager and delighted, the small lines under his glowing eyes growing deep and sending Yuuri’s heart a flutter. Viktor gave pause to the group of guys he’d been talking to skate over, stopping smoothly at the paneled ledge Yuuri stood behind. This week, Viktor had swapped the purple leather for well-fitted, gold-sequined blazer over his black shirt and white pants, nail varnish unchipped and well-kept as he held out a hand to shake.

“Yuuri! I’m glad you decided to come back out!” Viktor said, grip firm as Yuuri returned the gesture, becoming weaker and weaker with every shake until he felt his whole mind and body come to a complete stop. Viktor was genuinely excited to see him, which was great, but it begged the question: now what? Yuuri had gotten this far, hadn’t he? Now what? Now Viktor was looking up at him, nonexpectantly expecting a reply at some point, surely, and here was Yuuri, faintly aware of the bead of sweat rolling down the back of his neck.

It must’ve been a lifetime before he could just spit it out.

When Yuuri first made his request, it was so quiet that Viktor furrowed his brow and leaned in closer, not letting go of their hands entwined. On his second attempt to make his request, Yuuri still stuttered, perhaps too quiet, knowing Viktor’s eyes were on him.

“I—uh— _I’m ready to try again_.”

Oh God.

“Are you?” Viktor said at full volume, smile lascivious, but not unkind, as he let go and skated back a few paces, keeping his eyes on Yuuri. “How about this—you enter the contest tonight, you win gold, and you win,” Viktor gave a theatrical pop of his sparkling jacket collar, “ _gold_.”

Where Yuuri had felt anxiety in his chest was now bubbling with relief as he snorted. “I can do that,” he said, sounding unexpectedly, even to himself, determined. “You’re on.”

The crackle of the DJ’s microphone boomed overhead as Viktor skated away, beaming. “That’s what I like to hear! Sign up over with Leo at the sound booth—I want to kiss that gold medal!” he called before he made off, leaving Yuuri with a dopey smile plastered to his face for a few moments. Then, of course, it dawned on him—Yuuri recalled their interaction last week, in the rain:

_“I’ve never been roller skating, is it anything like ice skating?”_

_“I don’t know. Probably not.”_

His feet carried him to the sign up at a normal, steady pace while his mind moved a few hundred miles a minute. Yuuri? Pull off _skating_? Rollerskating? He didn’t even know where to start on all reasons this was terribly, terribly wrong. But here he was, writing his name down with a pen in front of the DJ’s booth like he wasn’t on the verge of a panic attack, a stark contrast to DJ Leo and his Hawaiian shirt bopping back and forth with the beat of the music.

“You got the entrance fee?” Leo asked half-shouting from under his headphones, snapping Yuuri back to attention as he tapped to a small line of print at the top of the sign-up sheet. Yuuri’s expression must’ve expressed _no_ well enough, because Leo glanced from side to side before waving Yuuri closer to him like he had a secret.

Leo pulled his headphones down around his neck and said to Yuuri, in a much more pleasant whisper: “Try your pockets.”

Yuuri frowned, patting each of his pockets down until he felt a small wad of cash inside the last one he checked, just enough to cover the charge.

Leo grinned, thumbing through the money, empathetic to Yuuri’s expression of incredulity. “Most people seem to forget to do that when they come here—no worries though! You’re good to go warm up. Stay sharp, kid, and good luck!” In return for his money, Leo handed Yuuri a pair of tan roller skates with orange heels, well-worn with fraying laces. Yuuri thanked Leo, smile probably looking closer to a grimace as he stalked away to find an empty chair, feeling indescribably small in the crowd of people.

Right foot, left foot. Yuuri blinked, staring at the sight of his feet in roller skates. 

As much as he would’ve liked to forget the last time he put on a pair, there’s no way his consciousness would ever let it go, no matter how painful, and that’s just how it was.

But roller skating was different—Viktor had said it was different! Viktor, the iconic and game-changing ice-skater, had meekly tried to lie to him last week, admittedly, but had more or less confirmed roller skating and ice skating were two totally different animals, right?

Right, which brought Yuuri back to square one—he’d never even been roller skating, and here he was, chasing tail all the way out onto the shiny wood paneled floor—

“ _No way!_ Are you competing? That’s so rad! The more, the merrier, right?”

Bent over his skates, Yuuri looked up from his laces to find, looming over him, Mr. Mickey-Mouse-Shirt from last week, and his hair that was somehow both red and blond. Already exhausted, Yuuri opened his mouth to respond before he was abruptly cut off.

“Come on—let’s go warm up! I’m Minami!” suddenly there was a hand in Yuuri’s face, offering to help him up and sweep him away. Yuuri got up on his own, wanting to get a feel for the skates on his own, now that wheels were under his feet. His arms jerked back and forth, just until he found his balance, his new friend hardly even batting an eyelash.

“Yuuri,” he replied, taking a moment to remember his own name as he stood tall, straightening his jean jacket. “Katsuki Yuuri.”

Minami’s jaw dropped, his hands grasping hold of his head in disbelief. “Katsuki Yuuri? _The_ Katsuki Yuuri?”

Yuuri’s brow furrowed, stuttering out a few _uhs_ and _ums_. Since when had he ever been _the_ Katsuki Yuuri? What exactly had he ever done to deserve the _the_ in front of his name, again?

“I used to be your number one fan! Your skating is what made me want to ice-skate!” Minami exclaimed, grabbing hold of Yuuri’s arm, shaking him aggressively, albeit unintentionally, like he was some kind of rag doll. “Wow—I can’t believe I ran into you here, of all places! I can’t believe I didn’t _recognize_ you last week!”

“Can we, uh—” Yuuri scanned the room, looking to see if anyone, if Viktor had noticed the outburst. “Can we _please_ keep it down?” he pleaded, quickly stepping onto the polished wood with a shaky stride. Right, left. Right, left. Right left.

Minami, naturally, wasn’t far behind.

“Oh, of course!” Minami’s volume lowered into what was likely the closest he could get to a whisper. “I understand—people don’t really want to be recognized in San Junipero. Viktor’s the same way too, gets all embarrassed when people talk about his skating career.” Yuuri looked up from his feet to steal a glance across the rink at Viktor, easily going twice his speed, his expression stern and serious.

Right, left. Right, left. Right, left.

“But I have to ask,” Minami continued. “What happened to you? You basically fell off the face of the earth after Nationals that one year!”

Yuuri swallowed, body feeling heavy. As much as he wanted to forget the last time he put on a pair of skates, no matter how painful the memory was, he _couldn’t let it go_ , and that was that. “I, uh, I was—”

 _“2 more minutes, skaters! 2 more minutes!”_ boomed Leo over the sound system, garnering a few light claps from the people nursing drinks and chatting around the rink.

“I was wondering, actually—this is a competition. How does it work, exactly?” asked Yuuri, palms sweating. Minami bought the in, his whole face lighting up as he gracefully turned and started skating backwards.

“Okay, so—six of us are skating tonight, we basically go in order of sign-ups, which means I get to go first!” Minami gave a wiggle, sticking his foot out theatrically. “We all skate one after another, except if you think you can beat someone at their own routine, then you skate out onto the floor while it’s their turn to sort of out-do them. Most people don’t do that though—it’s kind of risky because then your solo performance doesn’t count, and since you could totally tank trying to copy someone else, it’s easier to just play it safe. Don’t take it too seriously though—most of the guys are just freestyling, it’s supposed to be fun! Audience response determines the winner!”

Yuuri nodded, running over the rules again in his mind, just as another, tall and tan competitor landed a beautiful jump from across the way, garnering a light applause from a few fan girls who had been paying attention. The idea of actually performing in front of people for fun was a terribly foreign concept to him and it always had been—like asking a pig on its way to the butcher if it was having a good time. But the lights had lowered, warm-ups were ending, and unless he decided to abandon his skates and beeline out into the nightlife, Yuuri was going to be out on that rink, skating for gold, and praying he didn’t completely fuck up.

“Hey, you’re pretty good at this!” said Minami, smile bright and earnest as they stepped up back into the crowd. “Just like riding a bike, right?”

The compliment had taken him aback, as Yuuri realized he hadn’t been actively counting his steps, hadn’t hyper-focused on his every movement for the last few go-arounds. He took a deep inhale and felt nothing other than an even exhale—Leo was talking up a storm into his microphone, the crowd around him cacophonous and enthralled while he himself was, of all things, quiet inside. He wished good luck to Minami, whose wide doe eyes turned wistful and motivated as he pushed himself back onto the wood, alone in the massive space as he waited for his turn.

Yuuri sat at the nearest stool he could find and waited, wringing his hands together and watching intently. He’d done it for years, him and his friends—they’d copied other people’s routines for fun. Tried to match each other’s moves for fun. Surely, the ability to do that kind of thing hadn’t completely escaped him now, even now that it wasn’t ice-skating? He was set to go last, he could make that work right?

The pang in his chest told him “no”.

A twangy, upbeat guitar riff launched Minami into some high kicks and fancy foot work while the audience began to clap out the familiar rhythm. Yellow lights flashed along the walls and flew across the heads of big hair watching Minami in wonder from the sidelines.

_“I've got this feeling, that time's just holding me down…”_

Yuuri had always had luck with his step sequences, and stamina was hardly ever an issue before, but everything Minami gave out was nothing but energy, and that was something completely different. Even when he messed up on a jump, or maybe fell out of time with the beat, he made it seem like it was no big deal—what was a mistake going to do, stop him? Heavens no, Minami plunged into his routine, full-speed ahead, and Yuuri couldn’t help but admire him for it.

The song ended, and Minami had been deservingly met with thunderous applause, himself skating around the edge of the rink to high-five outstretched hands, basking in the glory. He stepped off the rink at the far end, falling into conversation with what looked like a few good friends of his, not without shooting a peace sign back at Yuuri—Yuuri returned the gesture with a nod and a small wave, hoping Minami could hear his “Good job!” from across the way.

“Thanks for saving me a seat, dude!” Yuuri turned to find Isabella slipping into the empty stool beside him, setting down a rum and coke along with her apron in front of him.

“Hey Isabella,” Yuuri pushed the drink away, just so, “you don’t have to work?”

“Oh, I do, but Seung-gil lets me hop off duty to watch my husband skate, so here I am!” she replied cheerfully, before lowering her gaze and leaning into Yuuri’s shoulder. “You’re about to see the best of the best, you know that, right?” The end of Isabella’s jest had been cut off by the crackling feedback of Leo’s microphone, and suddenly her attention was on the floor. The room had gone dark with but a few simple spotlights on the middle of the empty rink, which was slowly but surely being filled with a flowing run of smoke.

“ _Ladies and gentleman,_ _up next is that Charming Canuck, that Mighty Moose, Winnipeg’s Winningest—JJ Leroyyy—”_ It was almost appalling, how much confidence and arrogance one man could ooze, but at the sound of Leo’s announcement, out rolled JJ in an interesting amount of animal print, pointing to the ceiling, mane tall and teased. With a fierce drum line, the crowd clapped their hands, synchronized, and JJ took a lap like he was making the guitar riff and the bass jazz himself.

Isabella sighed, resting her cheek in her hand, her elbow on the shiny blue counter. “You know, I’ve known JJ almost our whole lives, and I never get tired of seeing him like this,” she said, as close as she could be to a whisper while still being audible, giving Yuuri a playful nudge. “He made it pretty big, you know, and even then, I never got sick of watching him perform.”

“Never?” Yuuri asked and Isabella shook her head.

“He was always there for me through everything, and trust me, there were some _hurdles_ ,” she replied, playing it off with a laugh. “Like sky-scraper-sized hurdles. I couldn’t possibly bring myself to go without him, because all those times, he never once left my side.”

JJ zipped past them suddenly, just before launching himself into a spectacular jump that drove the crowd nuts. Isabella stood up and cheered, the loudest and the proudest, before sitting back down with another dreamy sigh. “You have anyone like that?”

That kind of question had taken him aback, and he thought and thought, his mind wandering far away from the rink and from San Junipero. Honestly, Yuuri had so much support, so many people to be thankful for, but when you got right down to it, there was really only one person who’d been there for him like Isabella for JJ, for his whole life.

 _“Woah, we’re halfway there—”_ The crowd reveled in singing the chorus back to JJ.

“My sister,” Yuuri said finally. Isabella nodded, although her gaze didn’t fail to follow JJ around the rink, and Yuuri could tell he was probably talking to himself. “She supported me no matter what, let me make my own choices, never treated me like I was stupid,” alright, wrong word maybe, “or weak.” Better choice, all things considered.

“She here?” JJ landed another jump, the flow taking him to his knees as he slide across the floor, grin wide and self-assured.

“Ah, I don’t know, I hope s—” Yuuri cut himself off, taking a mental note of the choreography for his own impending routine. He hadn’t expected this kind of showmanship for a bar roller-skating competition, frankly, not that he’d expected to find himself in one in the first place, not like the sea of people surrounding him, who’d made this a regular part of their San Junipero experience, their Saturday night parties.

JJ ended his routine with his fists raised and his chest puffed out, panting but beaming with pride, spinning to wave to every corner of the rink before blowing a kiss back at Isabella.

“Well, whatever happens, your sister sounds great! I hope you find her—and good luck tonight!” She gave him a short shoulder squeeze before running and leaping into the arms of JJ, who just stepped back up onto the safety of the carpet, booming about how well he’d done tonight.

Somewhere midst the excitement and the applause, Yuuri had an idea. Gingerly, he rolled past the unending masses of people behind him, cautiously navigated down the steps, before making it to the dancefloor, unusually vacant and ignored in favor of the competition. A few simple strides to the middle, reviewing in his head all he could recall from his years on the ice, and every impressive bit of artistry, of movement from JJ and Minami, Yuuri began to skate.

After JJ was Christophe—Viktor’s pursuer from last week, whom Yuuri found he didn’t quite want to watch. However, he could hear coos sighs from the crowd, see past a few heads at certain angles the ferocious sex appeal in Chris’s rotations and his strides. Yuuri tried his own glides, ran a spread eagle, progressively finding out where he weight could be dispersed across four wheels.

_“Everybody’s looking for something…”_

“Watch your free leg.” Yuuri’s head jerked up at the voice, belonging to the stern looking bartender, Seung-gil, from behind the counter. “I’m sure no one will care, but you could do better.”

After Chris was a new face, Emil, who’s routine apparently required rapid flashing lights and made the crowd laugh instead of cheer. At the few moments Yuuri took the time to watch him, his strengths were in his dancing more than anything else, his lanky figure contorting into a physicality as he skated that was wholly unique. Back on the checked dancefloor, Yuuri found himself working on a few short ballet warm-ups, his years at the bar coming back to him with no effort at all.

_“I'm just a man who needed someone, and somewhere to hide.”_

The gratuitous applause at the end of Emil’s performance seemed to jolt Yuuri out of a headspace he hadn’t realized he’d fallen into. At this point, he remembered, there should only be two performers left, and he’d nearly forgotten Viktor was not only one of them, but would be up next.

 Yuuri wasted no time in getting back up to the rink, his seat left wholly untouched, although the ice in the drink Isabella left had melted by now. He sat just as the lights cut out and Leo began to croon into the microphone: “ _Ladies and gentleman, your next competitor and our reigning champ, that renowned rusky, that glorious golden boy: Viktor Nikiforov_!”

At the far end of the room, Viktor glided out onto the floor with the roar of applause, gold arms out and dazzling, smile thin and controlled. Yuri gasped as the lights flipped on to a stark new color, bathing everyone and everything in blue as Viktor took his position in the center, looking up at the ceiling, stance strong.

_“Well I’ve had the time of my life, and I’ve never felt this way before…”_

Yuuri almost choked on Viktor’s cheesy song choice, and remained breathless as he watched what he thought he’d never see again in his life—the idol from his youth doing what he did so effortlessly, so flawlessly—for the most part, anyway. Yuuri had studied Viktor’s style almost religiously as a young skater, hoping to emulate even half of the stories he could tell through just the right wrist flick, the right glide, the right glint in his eye.

Viktor landed a quad and the crowd almost preemptively raved, Yuuri himself now very aware that these same clunky skates tied to his feet could do the same thing. Observing with greater intensity, the song creeping up on its first chorus, Yuuri couldn’t get rid of the warm feeling that echoed through his rib cage telling him that, you know, if _anyone_ could match Viktor’s routine, it would be _him_. He’d done it before, he could do it again, surely. Yuuri glanced just to his left, the rum and coke resting where Isabella had left it on the table, doing a double take between it and Viktor’s flawless routine before throwing the whole thing down the hatch. He set his glasses down alongside the empty glass and took a deep breath.

It wasn’t long before Leo, shocked but ecstatic, announced the entrance of a challenger to the reigning champ. Not in ages had Celestino’s seen two competitors face off head-to-head—let alone the new guy challenging Viktor Nikiforov.

Viktor’s expression was almost unreadable as he grazed through his footwork—something beyond surprised, a little behind arrogant, and collectively motivated. Yuuri grinned as he imitated the same movements, just a measure behind Viktor’s own, his body the echo as they spun across the rink. Back spin to back spin, chasse to chasse, their eyes watching one another in anticipation.

But then, Viktor went in for a jump—triple axel, landing steady and square, much to the delight of the crowd. Yuuri’s beat was coming up, his insides clenching, heaving at the idea of matching it.

_Come on, give it the one… two…_

He got the height and turns, but put a shaky hand down on the landing. The tightness released as the shocked applause echoed through the whole of his body instead. .

They’d circled each other so briefly, so rhythmically, that Yuuri almost missed Viktor’s question.

“Should we try a lift?”

“ _What?_ ”

“Y’know, like in the movie,” they spun, legs out and mirroring one another, before they passed each other, long enough for Viktor to make his disclaimer. “I don’t know if I can get you that high, though. Do you trust me?”

The music was only building, each beat of the drum and pluck of the bass line leading up to Yuuri’s answer.

“I’ll let you know,” he replied, and Viktor took his cue to get himself squared and situated across the skate floor.

Yuuri had a handful of moments in his life, looking back on it, that were so intrinsic, so natural, that the faintest idea suggesting anything else seemed ridiculous. A three, two, one and straight into orbit, like he could suddenly wave to home from outer space and feel nothing but glee about it. A handful of moments just like that, plus this one now, as just in time with the singing duet and drum build, Yuuri took off, and let himself be swung in a circle, Viktor’s arms not faulting even for an instant. He laughed off the shock, grip deathly on Viktor’s shoulders, letting the roar of the crowd and the throaty _woop_ from Viktor below him swallow him whole. Flying like this, surely, was nothing but right.

The track stopped, a hardly noticeable exit as the crowd screamed and Yuuri made his landing, back from the stratosphere and into the ocean blue of Viktor’s irises. His hands didn’t leave those gold-plated shoulders, nor did Viktor’s leave his sides as they stood, stifling shocked laughter, in the spotlight of the rink, which at some point, turned pink. Yuuri was sure that time was passing like this, but the only thing he awaited was Viktor’s growing look of wonder as he opened his mouth like he was going to say something—

Leo beat him to it. _“Ladies and gentlemen_ — _our champion has done it yet again!”_

The smile that had wound its way onto Yuuri’s face lingered at the rise of applause before he’d come to the final implication. The rest of the male skaters made their way out onto the rink as Viktor and Yuuri split apart, lining up one by one as Leo announced the results. JJ had unusually come in third, Yuuri climbed his way up to silver second, and Viktor Nikiforov, naturally, came in first, the reigning and undefeated roller skate king of Celestino’s.

The crowd’s response was near deafening; Yuuri stood and wondered what he should do next, the well-known feeling of shame rising from the pit of his stomach when suddenly—a plastic gold medal was flung around his neck. Yuuri nearly spun to look at the rest of the line-up—Minami, JJ, Viktor, and everyone else was given, for participating, a small, dorky gold metal, the cheap mold etching a messy _#1_ onto the front.

Yuuri rubbed his thumb over the plastic for a few beats before turning to Viktor as he waved to the crowd. “You didn’t tell me everyone got a gold medal.”

An unabashed, crooked grin spread across Viktor’s face as he shrugged. “Ah, well. I thought of a good line, and I thought it might make me sound charming,” he said, turning to give Yuuri a wink. “Did it work?”

Yuuri scoffed in disbelief as he gave the mass a small wave as well, putting on his best shit-eating grin as he wrapped his free arm around Viktor’s waist; Viktor’s breath hitched slightly as he was pulled hip-to-hip with Yuuri, giving their best wishes to the crowd.

Sure, he supposed it hadn’t all been for nothing after all.

“I had a feeling you’d be good,” Viktor said after a while, once the music began to pick up again, the patrons and the competitors starting to disperse. Looking a little smug, he put his his arm around Yuuri’s shoulder and lead him for a lap around the ring. “When we danced the other night, I had a feeling it’d translate well to skating.”

“We only danced for a few minutes, I just copied you,” Yuuri protested.

“Trust me,” said Viktor, voice confident and clear. “It was enough—I’m glad to see I was right.”

_“Too-ra-loo-ra-too-ra-loo-rye-aye”_

It was almost laughable. Yuuri couldn’t believe that this was what had been eating away at him all night—he’d been beyond worried at first, and that was just the least of whatever it was he wanted to call that sick, crawling feeling when he’d first put his skates on. But here, arm and arm with Viktor, their plastic medals swaying with every stride as they took their time rolling up and down the rink in time with one another, the _right-left, right-left, right-left_ mantra was far, far away. Yuuri, at last, relaxed.

Leo gave a quick announcement over at his DJ’s booth that the women’s contest was going to start in another hour.

“You know, if you wanted to stay a while more, we would still have about two hours or so until midnight,” Viktor suggested, skating effortlessly even as he slid a hand into his pocket. “As long as you’re still ready.”

Yuuri picked up the pace a little bit, taking a hold of Viktor’s other hand, allowing them a few feet of distance before he replied, “I trust you.”

And so they made their way around the wooden panels again and again, not counting the minutes spent  singing along with the music overhead or talking about the few straight thoughts that came to mind or saying nothing at all. Viktor switched jackets with Yuuri, liking the new fashion and saying maybe next time they should try wind breakers, it might be more comfortable; Yuuri, falling in love with the way his get-up mismatched, suggested to a snorting Viktor that while they were at it, maybe they should get sweatbands. Together they’d raced and loafed, greeted the likes of fans and competitors, and did it all, laughing.

“Hey, listen,” Yuuri said as they exited Celestino’s, his voice still loud as though he was still inside, and he took a pause on the bottom stone step. They were on their way to wherever Viktor’s Cadillac had been parked; he’d offered Yuuri a ride to his place back inside, like it was a secret, their hands never separating. “I wasn’t kidding, what I said back at the rink.”

“Hmm?” Viktor hardly looked at him, scanning instead the rows of vehicles lining the streets.

Yuuri felt himself flush. “I, uh—I don’t know how to do this.”

“Do what?”

The sound of waves crashing on the beach became more and more audible as they walked further and further from the action of the packed bars. A seagull cried as it flew off towards the ocean.

“ _This_ ,” Yuuri tried to explain again, waiting for words that would not come. “All of this, it’s new for me. I just…make it easy for me? Please?”

Viktor stopped them abruptly on the sidewalk, waited just a moment for a group of partygoers to pass by them before he took Yuuri’s hand up to his mouth to kiss, gently giving it a squeeze.

“I can do that.”

* * *

 

Yuuri wasn’t sure what Viktor’s bed was made out of but he was sure it was something like clouds—the gold bedframe was right up against the open window, the breeze splaying the curtains and bringing in a slightly chilled waft of fresh salty air. Fingers intertwined with Viktor’s, Yuuri’s thumb rubbing circles on his palm, he struggled to keep his eyes open as Viktor hummed out a small tune, their breath starting to even out again.

Viktor had been staying in some kind of beach house rental for his stay in San Junipero—well-furnished and luxurious in muted pastels and soft metals that Yuuri liked a lot, and liked a lot more for Viktor, thinking that it suited him more than his collection of fashionable, albeit loud jackets. Most of the things weren’t Viktor’s however, as he’d explained, other than just a few small things he’d been able to carry with him—a small snow globe of a foreign castle, a knit blanket, resting at their feet right now, and an old picture of him and his first dog. Yuuri had said he’d had a dog like that too once; Viktor, eyes warm and dark, kissed him in lieu of a response. And then, like the rhythm sweeping in through the windows, what followed came in waves, and it had been _something_.

Yuuri’s unending stream of consciousness seemed to repeat the same thing over and over: _it’s all so_ _real, it’s all so real._

“You’ve never had a lover?” Viktor asked, voice soft, but enough to break the silence. Yuuri’s half-lidded eyes flew open suddenly as he nearly launched off his back to sit up, rendering an apologetic snort from Viktor as he stuttered for a reply.

“That wasn’t meant to be critical—this was,” Viktor’s eyes went wide and inspired, looking up and away and distant, “ _fucking amazing_ ,” he assured, cheeks blushing deeper. “But I just wanted to make sure I understood what you said before.”

“I—uh—no. Not one.”

“What, no one in town?” Yuuri shook his head half-way through Viktor’s question, and he watched blue eyes turn more incredulous.

“No one in town, no one anywhere,” Yuuri replied with a small shrug, turning his attention towards the smooth white ceiling. “My track record with relationships leaves, uhm, much to be desired.”

“Come on,” Viktor scoffed, “what about that fiancé?”

Yuuri bit his lip, shaking his head again; it wasn’t that he had forgotten, per se, it’s just…“It’s complicated,” he said, sounding a little dry. Resting on the sheets between them, Viktor’s hand gave Yuuri’s another small squeeze.

“You’re telling me,” Viktor sighed, shifting on the bed to face Yuuri. His expression was something new now, beyond the candid excitement he’d had back at the rink, or the too-successful attempts to come off as anything other than embarrassed when people talked about his celebrity, or the smooth charisma and sophistication he’d thrown on when squared up against people like Chris or JJ or Isabella.  No, now the creases under his eyes were obvious, his eyebrows forever turned up, his lips parted and relaxed and he was vulnerable.

“What about you?” asked Yuuri, sounding almost too innocent for his own liking. “You’ve been with people?”

“I’ve been with _many_ people,” Viktor shook his head, crooked smile growing on his face as he chuckled.

Yuuri turned off his back to face Viktor, chest just apart from chest. “But have you been _been_ with people? Here? Elsewhere?”

It wasn’t so much that the temperature in the room changed as much as Yuuri suddenly noticed it—he suddenly noticed everything, whether he wanted to or not, as he waited for Viktor to carefully choose his words. He’d tried once, twice, three times—each time ending with him biting his lip, or looking just past Yuuri’s ear to the pale pink wall behind him. Yuuri kept up the circles on Viktor’s palm, hoping he hadn’t crossed a line.

“There were crushes,” a small chuckle, finally, “ _many_ crushes. On anyone—men I’d worked with, people I’d been friends with, the occasional waiter with a kind smile.” Yuuri nodded in understanding, but Viktor was still glancing beyond him. He blinked once, twice, three times over, rapidly. “But, uh, if you hadn’t noticed, I am Russian.”

“ _No_ ,” Yuuri gasped, just before flashing a somewhat cheeky grin; Viktor couldn’t help but let out a wet laugh, relaxing into his pillow a small bit before his face was overcome with a dull pain.

“For a lot of my life the collective opinion around _this_ sort of thing where I’m from wasn’t exactly forgiving and, uh, I didn’t really invest myself into anyone that could stay longer than a night or two, if that.” A circle once, twice, three times over, in time with the shaky rise and fall of Viktor’s chest. “And now I’m _here_ , just passing through,” a small crack in his voice after he’d tried to laugh, a small tear creeping past the smile on his lips, “and before I leave, I’m going to have a good time,” Viktor concluded, sounding somewhat unconvinced.

Yuuri reached his hand out to Viktor’s exposed shoulder, thumbing around the freckles sprinkling his warm skin, when he watched the alarm clock on the night stand flip from 11:58 to 11:59 PM.

“We’re almost out of time,” whispered Yuuri, watching Viktor turn on his elbows to gaze at the clock with a sigh.

Viktor turned back around, eyes glassy and tender and looking solely _at him_ , this time, and whispered back, “then let’s just lie here.”

Yuuri didn’t dare close his eyes, regretting any concept of parting with this bed, this house, this man, but on a slow and steady intake of the sex and sea-salt aroma that surrounded him, it was over.

—ONE WEEK LATER—

The difference between this week and last was that instead of stalking, half-conscious, like some kind of zombie on a mission to Celestino’s, Yuuri was now somewhere between a giddy skip and a full-on jog, refusing any distractions on his way down the sidewalk path he’d grown to know pretty well. He’d heard plenty of stories about this overwhelmingly warm feeling radiating under his skin and through his finger times, and those had always been nice. He’d had plenty of things he’d perhaps felt similarly about over the years, but none of those _things_ were people. Or rather, a person, singular.

Yuuri threw open the door with an optimistic resolve, scanning the room up, down, and sideways for that familiar head of grey hair, bathed in the neon.

_“I'm tied to the hope that you will somehow, hard on the heels of something more~”_

Huh, maybe he was early?

Yuuri took to the bar after he took a lap through the dance floor and around the outside of the rink, waving Isabella down.

“Hi Yuuri!” she smiled, reaching for a glass under the counter. “What can I getcha?”

Yuuri held a hand out to stop her. “Actually, I was wondering if you’ve seen Viktor?”

“Viktor? No, I can’t say I’ve seen him tonight at all,” Isabella said, setting the glass back down and resting her elbows on the shiny blue surface, taking in Yuuri’s falling expression. “You could try the Chacked?”

“I—uh,” Yuuri’s eyebrows furrowed at the suggestion. “What is the Chacked?” Isabella’s smile fell to something like grimace, vaguely apologetic, before leaning in to explain.

It was something of a loaded question, Yuuri would realize later, asking what the Chacked was at all. Apparently it wasn’t a place that was really discussed publicly, but somehow people about San Junipero knew exactly where and what kind of establishment it was, and above all, the unspoken rules surrounding participation there.

On the outskirts of town, Yuuri would find, where sand had turned into fields of tall, pale grass, the Chacked, a repurposed industrial factory, or so it looked, sat on the end of a dirt road. Dust flying everywhere as a small gang of motorcyclists revved past Yuuri, he could hear from a considerable distance the dissonant wail of heavy music in time with the rapid blinking lights that seeped through the windows. With every step he took, he felt himself slow down a little bit more, a little bit more, until he was at the door, the handle vibrating from the bass of the speakers.

Stepping into some kind of fever dream, Yuuri was an even bigger fish out of water here than he’d ever been before in San Junipero—dark and smoky, the Chacked was wall to wall with slithering patrons backed up into fence and brick. Everyone seemed to move slow, sensual, and much too close to him, as he dodged the light grabs for his arms, squirming out of reach of painted hands and leather-bound wrists. When they weren’t moving slow, they were moving too fast, seizing bottles, clamoring the air, grasping each other with an amount of force Yuuri felt his stomach drop by. Cheers and whistling and the breaking of glass reverbed into nothingness, women in cages and not much else gestured with one finger for him to _come here, don’t be so shy, you look a bit lost_. When a rather tall, stocky man, fell and knocked Yuuri into a wall, just under a bare light bulb, Yuuri had been able to react with nothing more than a gasp, watching him get back up and drive his fist into the face of another scary looking patron.

He dipped out as soon as he could, trying to find his way back to the fresh air outside but getting lost in the maze of wandering hands and unrelenting sweat. Yuuri hadn’t been one for crowds, not now, not ever, and he could feel himself growing frantic when he collided with someone else.

Apologizing profusely, as he impulsively reached to make sure his glasses didn’t fall off, it took almost no time for him to realize who the stumbling man in the mesh shirt and thick studded leather dog collar was. “C-Christophe?”

Yuuri was almost relieved when he got a smile in return, Chris raising a bottle in recognition. “Ah, Viktor’s friend right? The one with ‘eight months to live’, ya? Didn’t think I’d ever see you here,” he slurred and smirking, took a long swig.

“Chris, have you seen Viktor anywhere?” Yuuri asked, voice steady.

Chris rolled his eyes, putting on an air of independence and indifference. “No, can’t say I have.”

“Do you know where to find him?”

“Why would I?”

“Y-you’re his friend, aren’t you?” Yuuri asked, sounding more pleading than he’d wanted to.

Chris’s smile turned sour, more into a smirk, although his eyes seemed to go sad. “What, pretty boy dump you too? Awww, poor baby. Sorry, I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Chris took another quick swig out of his bottle, offering it to Yuuri, who declined politely. “But hey, if you’re desperate, try another time. I’ve run into him in the noughts, the nineties, 1969 seems to be an occasional favorite, for _whatever_ reason.”

Noticing that he must’ve looked dejected, Christophe took Yuuri’s cheek in his hand, gently pulling his face to look into his own sunken eyes straight on. “If it’s so important to you, keep up hope and keep looking. He’s worth the shot, right?” Chris asked, sympathetic and easy, before letting Yuuri go and waving him off, himself disappearing into the dark mass.

Instinctually, Yuuri wanted to agree with that. Oh, did he want to agree with that.

But truthfully? Well, truthfully, Yuuri had a lot going on. All of him, he knew, he was a lot. He had a lot to do, a lot depending on him, a lot about him, and probably, too much to weigh down Viktor with. Viktor had probably come to that conclusion sooner than he, and while the notion dragged in Yuuri’s feet as he carried himself out the door and into the cool air outside. Yuuri couldn’t blame him for not coming back.

He’d spent the rest of his night after his brief stint at the Chacked walking barefoot on the beach, one hand in his pocket, the other holding onto his Keds, occasionally making double takes at any young woman stomping out a cigarette and any man sporting a particularly fashionable jacket, now on the lookout for two people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Addicted to Love"- Robert Palmer  
> "Footloose"- Kenny Loggins (Minami's routine)  
> "Living On a Prayer"- Bon Jovi (JJ's routine) ((TELL ME RIGHT NOW JJ ISN"T A BON JOVI FAN BOY))  
> "Mr. Roboto"- Styx (Emil's routine)  
> "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This"- Eurythmics (Chris's routine)  
> "The Time of My Life"- Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes (Viktor and Yuuri's routine)  
> (I like to think Yuuri's solo would've been "This Must Be The Place" by the Talking Heads but that's for you guys to decide)  
> "Come On Eileen"- Dexy's Midnight Runners (after the competition)  
> "Heart and Soul"- T'Pau (the following week at Celestino's)
> 
> (Would everyone have chosen American 80's pop songs for their routines??? For my intents and purposes, yes.)


	3. baby I was afraid before

—ONE WEEK LATER—

He could respect the whole “nostalgia therapy” thing, and he was glad it was an opportunity that was available for the people who needed it, sure, but Viktor liked revisiting the times he hadn’t really been old enough to remember or really live in in the first place. The eighties were some kind of pipe dream that he really only experienced only in glimpses at his baby photos and in old movies he had marathoned in his teens. He himself had only made an appearance at the end of the decade, and had been born in the U.S.S.R., after all—any air of glamour he’d been able to hold up for himself and his look in San Junipero had been entirely watched and diligently practiced, as opposed to lived.

The nineties, Viktor had a slightly easier time with, even if he’d spent most of them wiping out on the ice and eating Kinder eggs, as far as he could recall. Stepping back into 1998, a little older than nine years old this time, was supposed to be last week’s adventure until, almost too appropriately, he slipped and fell on the ice just after lunch. It wasn’t a big deal, not nearly as big of a deal as anyone had made it out to be, but it was enough of an ordeal that when he took to rest on Saturday afternoon, he didn’t wake up until 10 at night—missing his entry to San Junipero. He’d frowned about it, thinking he’d much rather be walking the beach and getting drinks at Celestino’s sparkly blue bar instead, that is, until he remembered the skating competition the week prior and abruptly ended the notion. Fine, no eighties. The nineties, maybe once in a while, even though they weren’t much his pace or his style, which of course, brought him to this week.

The noughts were a decade Viktor knew well, and that had treated him well right back, at least for the most part, with its teen pop and internet chat sites as he had bloomed into adolescence. Of course, there were as many deep valleys as there were great peaks, just as was life and just as there was a drawback with whatever era Viktor had chosen to step back into. The noughts brought headaches like satin shirts, frosted tipped-hair, and skateboarding as a fashion statement. 2005—the actual 2005— had brought him attention, and international attention at that. Whether the attention had been good, or really terribly, terribly bad, sometimes it was still hard for Viktor to tell for sure. And just like those early 2000s fashions, that inability to decide between what was good and what wasn’t had come back to bite him in the ass again and again and _again_ , hadn’t it? Nursing his third drink at the shiny chrome bar, Viktor was sure these boot cut jeans were a good look at some point.

_“Love forever, love is free, let's turn forever you and me…”_

If he was going to be honest, he chose 2005 this week because Celestino’s had replaced the roller rink with an arcade. No rink meant no skating, and Viktor couldn’t help but feel uncharacteristically fidgety when he thought about skating right now, not that the couple bickering loudly a few seats down from him helped much at all.

“Georgi, it’s over—stop trying to follow me!”

He supposed he just couldn’t shake the mental picture of Yuuri practicing for the competition—he’d done some mingling around the rink while Chris was performing, so as to avoid any sort of suggestive eye contact that was always a given for his friend’s performances. Viktor couldn’t even remember who he’d been talking to when he noticed just slightly out of his vision, Yuuri, glasses and jacket tossed to the side, sleeves rolled up, running a nervous hand through his hair as he set himself up to try a step sequence again, all alone on the dance floor, not noticing Viktor watching him with bated breath.

“But Anya, I thought we had something special!”

He’d been so focused, his entire body completely fluid and terribly precise, and Viktor couldn’t do anything other than stare. Feet glued in place, everyone and everything around him started to play slow and steady, if at all. Yuuri’s sense of flow was wise and whole, each step grateful and graceful without letting on exactly how conscious and aware he was of himself—let alone the honest brown eyes and hands that left a warm feeling of generosity when it had left Viktor’s palm. The hold on his heart was so alien, the sparks on his fingertips nearly nostalgic before the weight of what he’d done hit him like a brick—Viktor had given this poor boy, this beautiful boy an ultimatum. Granted, a fake ultimatum. He’d hoped on Yuuri back to his place regardless of the outcome, but evidently, Yuuri didn’t recognize that as he ran through his techniques, basically begging Viktor to watch him with every breath and move. Yuuri wanted to Viktor to watch him. Yuuri wanted Viktor.

“We had something and now we don’t—what’s there to misunderstand?”

It had been a lot on him, frankly. A lot to take in. Viktor had gone along with his own sense of whim at the time, awestruck at the person he’d wound up skating hand in hand with after winning, stupidly crying to back in his bed. The shaky aftershock of vulnerability had griped him for days after, but now, Viktor found himself in a peculiar avoidance-approach tango, unsatisfied with where he was now, but hesitant to even show his face back in 1987.

“So you’re just going to leave me behind, is that it?”

Viktor had brought his drink up his lips again, only to find nothing was left. He set it back down on the counter, maybe a little too hard, earning a pregnant silence from the couple who’d stopped arguing only to stare at him. Viktor, taking a deep breath, didn’t grace them with a glance as he decided no—that wasn’t it, and it wasn’t true. He’d go back next week. He _had_ to—that was final.

—ONE WEEK LATER—

Mari, definitely teasing, although you could never quite tell with her, had once told Yuuri her life was better before he was born. Yuuri had been young enough to find the joke distressing, and after she had calmed his weeping, had explained: come on, Yuuri—eighties music? The colors? The cartoons? The fashion? She had pointed to a small poster on her wall taped up in a sea of posters, cut out of a magazine, adorned with a flawlessly made up woman with big hair clinging to a muscular man with a golden tan and sharp sunglasses. They were driving in a convertible, a stunning, vivid sandy beach scene in the distance. _1987_ was written on the corner, and Mari, who was just old enough that Yuuri believed everything she said, and who was young enough to believe in everything _she_ said as well, claimed that that was just what life was like in the eighties. She’d been little, of course, but she’d still been alive to know, obviously—everyone looked like that, even Mom and Dad. Really! And it never snowed, and Mari hated snow. It was ideal, and Yuuri had missed out on it. Then she’d played him a song on her cassette player, something that started with a fuzzy synth, but Yuuri couldn’t quite place the tune now.

Last week, he figured if he was serious about finding Mari, it might be worthwhile to try the nineties—1999, the year Mari had started high school, to be exact. It’d felt like a long shot, going for one of many years she actually would’ve remembered and remembered fondly, but frankly, this whole situation was a long shot, and there were other straws to pull besides 1987. A change of pace would be good, or at least that's what he convinced himself when memories of the skating competition and the tall grass and Viktor's beach house and the Chacked flooded his mind and leaked down his back too quickly to do anything but overflow.

“ _We were as one, babe, for a moment in time~”_

Yuuri had wandered far past the new maple wood counters and deteriorating roller rink at Celestino’s that night, past the wall of television screens, past the various beachside trinkets shops and the palm readers and tiki bars that lined the street nearest to the shoreline that he typically frequented. He’d trekked past the movie theatre, showing _Scream_ this week, past tall, brick buildings with advertisements draped along the sides. He’d walked through the park beneath the palm trees and conveniently found a perfect, shiny penny to toss into the stone fountain. There was a Ferris wheel and ice cream shops and just at the edge of town, before the streets ended and the rolling cliffs of tall grass settled into a cradle for the beach town to rest in, there was a car lot, full of convertibles. It’d been a nice change of pace, and Yuuri welcomed the chance to just walk, but every face and figure he passed was one simply one more stranger in the whole of 1999.

This week Yuuri chose 2005 almost entirely out of self-indulgence. For him, 2005 had been video games, more responsibility at the onsen, the baby-step beginnings of his junior skating career, and playing mediator for Nishigori and Yuuko as they pretended not to crush on each other. It hadn't been perfect, but this time, trusty baseball t-shirts and sneakers were acceptable bar-hopping wear, and there was no threats of zits or random attacks of weight gain. It was simple. Yuuri needed simple.

He hardly had a foot in the door to Celestino’s when he’d been accosted by a familiar face, albeit, not the one he’d been looking for.

“Hey! Yuuri!” Minami exclaimed, bright and chipper and, thankfully, wearing a pair of comfortable cargos instead of his tiny eighties athletic shorts. “Long time, no see! How’s it going?”

“I’m—uh—I’m alright. I’m kind of looking for someone,” Yuuri uttered, letting himself being pulled by the elbow past women in strappy high heels and men in trilbys.

“Oh really? Who’re you looking for?”

Yuuri hesitated longer than he’d wanted too, torn with two names on the tip of his tongue. “Mari,” he spat, suddenly, swatting away the image of Viktor's muscular shoulders and goofy smile that reared once he answered. “I’m looking for a woman named Mari—you haven’t met someone by that name at all, have you?”

“I can’t say I have,” Minami replied, shaking his head, pausing to turn and look at Yuuri after he’d let out an obviously disappointed sigh.

“I figured,” Yuuri offered. “I’ve just been trying to find her for a while, but I haven’t been particularly successful.”

Minami nodded, with a sympathetic smile, opening his mouth to say something before his gaze shifted just so, making his whole expression illuminate. “Hey listen—do you wanna go try a few games with me? I haven’t played Dance Dance Revolution, in like, _years_.”

Yuuri spent the rest of the night in the arcade with Minami, who in the end, was a good influence, marking this week as the closest he’d allowed himself to be to carefree enjoyment since his last duet. 

—ONE WEEK LATER—

At this point, he was just annoyed. He was annoyed that he looked so good in suede bellbottoms, because then he had to _wear_ the suede bellbottoms, and if he had _clothes on_ , then he had to _go out_. A cycle of horror.

Viktor didn’t know a damn thing about 1975 outside of Jaws and heeled boots, which is probably why he was here tonight at all. See, last week he had stuck to what he knew, in 1987, and had wasted another limited trial run alone, this time searching for Yuuri high and low, returning to Celestino’s every hour on the hour to see if that messy head of black hair had turned up at all. He’d lost track of how many people he’d pushed past as they tried to reach out to him, of how many alleys he considered walking down if only to check, of when exactly the sky had turned from orange to pink to indigo to black. It’d been fruitless, and Viktor knew he was just pouting at this point, but petty or not, he was disappointed. Disappointed, and perhaps a little anxious at the thought that without Yuuri, it almost wasn’t worth exploring the nightlife at all. His interest had already been waning, regrettably so, until the sun came in and the angels sang and he’d spotted that Keds-wearing, kind-hearted— _oh no_.  Viktor stopped, hand on the door to Celestino’s, before taking a deep breath in, and back out. He’d have fun tonight. He needed to have fun tonight. Whether Yuuri was there or not.

_“Fame, bully for you, chilly for me, got to get a rain check on pain.”_

“Viktor!” called a familiar, baby-faced regular, seated at the bar closest to the shag-carpet wall.

“Christophe!” Viktor exclaimed, coughing momentarily to bring himself back down to earth before taking a seat as well. “Chris—it’s good to see you again.”

“Long time, no see,” Chris cooed, rolling up the sleeves of his silk shirt. “You planning on tying some skates on tonight, by any chance?”

“Ah, I might, but I actually had a question for you,” Viktor bit his tongue, but not hard enough to stop himself. “You haven’t seen Yuuri around at all, have you?”

Chris looked mystified. “Yuuri? Who’s Yuuri?”

“You met him before—1987?”

“ _Right_ , that timid little pet of yours who knows his way around a roller rink,” Chris pouted, the tip of his finger circling the rim of his glass. “Come to think of it, he did ask me about you.”

Viktor’s heart leapt and twirled. “What? _When_?” He asked, perhaps a bit too desperate if Chris’s knowing look was telling at all.

“It was weeks ago, at the Chacked—”

“ _Yuuri went to the Chacked_?”

“He was looking for you, ran into me. I gave him some suggestions on where to look,” said Chris, leaving Viktor to sit and grit his teeth on the image of sweet Yuuri in that complete pit of an establishment. “Playing hard to get, are we, Viktor?”

“Well, no, I just, uh, wanted a change of pace. I didn’t expect that Yuuri would—”

“Hey wait, Katsuki Yuuri?” piped up a voice from behind him. Viktor, almost erratic, spun to meet eyes with a much shorter man, his hair and bubbly face recognizable by some measure of the imagination, although he couldn’t quite place the name.

“Yes!” Viktor exclaimed, clearing his throat again so he didn’t sound too excited. “Yes—do you know him?”

“Yeah, I hung out with him in 2005 last week—he’s a mean foosball player, let me tell you,” Minami laughed, but neither Chris nor Viktor humored him.

“He wasn’t looking for me, was he?”

Minami thought, tapping his foot sporadically as he pondered. “He _did_ say he was looking for someone, but he didn’t mention you at all. He said he was looking for someone named Mari, actually.”

Viktor nodded, deflating back into the bar. It’d only been one night. Only one night they’d spent together, really together. He hadn’t even been in the ballpark of being exclusive with Yuuri, and nothing of the sort of was mentioned when they’d connected at the competition and went on into the night. Viktor couldn’t blame him for doing exactly what he’d done to so many other people, he supposed, although something deep within him tugged and wouldn’t let go—maybe he was a little too much of a romantic, but he could’ve sworn they’d _had_ something, beyond the normal San Junipero brand of fun…

“Too little, too late, I suppose,” Chris gave Viktor a supportive pat on the back before complimenting Minami on his saddle oxfords. The two fell into an easy conversation on either side of him, while Viktor lost himself tapping his fingers to the beat pumping overhead, his neck craned just so that he could watch bar-goers skate on the freshest, shiniest version of Celestino’s roller rink he'd seen in a while, the disco ball not only being used, but glistening across the walls and the faces as it spun.

Whatever that something was, or could’ve been between himself and the beauty that was Yuuri Katsuki ultimately wasn’t enough for Viktor to give into the pull. He waved down Seung-gil and ordered a round of shots for himself, Chris, and Minami, taking a concerning lack of time in knocking his own back.

Before either of his companions could be the voice in reason as Viktor called for another round, he clapped a hand on Chris’s shoulder, shooting him his own knowing look. “Want to do 1969 next week?”

Chris grinned a smile bordering on devilish. “I am _so_ glad you asked.”

—ONE WEEK LATER—

When Yuuri had royally destroyed his skating career and embarrassed himself at the Grand Prix Final in Sochi, he went home. Stepping over the threshold from the stone pathway to the hardwood floor of the onsen for the first time in a long while, he felt in his chest a specific kind of loss. Because he knew his family wouldn’t ask him about his skating, as they didn’t know enough about it and they knew he wouldn’t want to talk about it either, which was true. But he was now home and the implication that because he was home, he would obviously start working again in the onsen. It was really supposed to be their way of supporting him—he had a safety net to fall back on, if and when he came back to Hasetsu, tired from his world travels. The few initial steps into his childhood home had not filled him with security, rather, he found himself tangled in the net that was supposed to catch him, not knowing what to do or where to go to next.

Mari, naturally, saw this and saw it obviously in such a clarity that their parents hadn’t ever quite gotten right and the conversation that followed was like tic-tac-toe. She asked him what he was doing home. He said he’d graduated, he was off season, it was time—she asked him if he was going to work in onsen now with her. He skirted the issue. She said she’d support him if decided to continue skating. He blurted out, just before she stepped out of the room that he didn’t know if he could do that. That he couldn’t shoulder his responsibilities here to continue a mediocre career, that it’d be unfair to their family and to her and—of course Mari was having none of it, and after taking a long drag from her cigarette said simply, “if I wanted to leave, then I would. If you want to leave, then you should.”

He hadn’t really gotten the chance to take her advice all those years ago, and had mostly let the phrase collect dust on a shelf in his memory until now, when it reared up disgust and frustration with himself as he stepped out onto the sidewalk into 1969. Last week, in a bout of frustration, Yuuri had spent about an hour in 1987 before stepping out of the system, coming to the conclusion that if he wanted to make the most of his time, if he wanted not to waste this opportunity in San Junipero, then he needed to find Viktor again. The thought made his insides twist, made a deep red gather along his nose and sprinkle up and down his cheeks, but it would be good, wouldn’t it? For some closure, at least. Because at the end of the day, people didn’t get uploaded to the cloud because things were going _well_ on the outside, and there was an extent to which Viktor’s absence wasn’t really avoidance or disgust or even dislike of Yuuri; there was an ultimately worse option in which Viktor was, nicely put, permanently offline.

Yuuri swallowed hard on the that thought and stomped past the familiar window shop, just one television screen in the window now, displaying the fateful moon landing on repeat. Chris had suggested 1969 with something of a scoff, and Yuuri was beginning to see why—most of the people here weren’t even born in the sixties, let alone had lived and experienced them, making the flower go-go boots and the weird itchy neckerchiefs and the over-abundance of brown suede acting as native animal hide actively a bit _much_ in comparison to the last few years he’d been to. He’d passed by at least three entirely unironic peace signs on the way to Celestino’s for crying out loud—everyone here was just _guessing,_ Yuuri realized.

_“We're caught in a trap, I can't walk out, because I love you too much baby~”_

This version of Celestino’s had groovy green and orange flower designs painted on the wallpaper and fuchsia faux-leather seats aligned at the empty bar. It seemed that Yuuri had stumbled upon a competition, what with all of the bar patrons focused on the shiniest, newest version of the roller rink and the few skaters doing rounds to warm up. Approaching the seated counter to get a better view of the room, he counted the tops of the skaters heads, trying to determine if they were truly strangers or if the style change had rendered them otherwise, unrecognizable. As opposed to the hairsprayed mullets that tended to cloud his last competition, all the skaters here had either Ken doll hair or a bird’s nest on the top of their head. Examining careful, it took several moments before Yuuri spotted long flow of silver locks at the far corner, and even then, he was hesitant to decide for sure that that was the head he was looking for. A white, fringed vest and a flower crown—the style was certainly exuberant enough, reminding him of the various posters he'd kept of Viktor on his wall as a teenager, forgetting almost momentarily that supposedly, hopefully, this was the same man. It wasn’t until he was close enough to see the sprinkled freckles on the shoulders and the skates on his feet that Yuuri felt able to call out, heart gone fluttering and flying again.

“ _Viktor!_ ”

This time, when the tall head of silver hair spun to search for Yuuri’s voice in the crowd of people, his brow did not unfurrow at the sight of him. Rather, he blinked, expression going blank and decidedly unreadable as he gave pause to the individuals he’d been talking to and tried to side-step away. Yuuri caught up too soon, however, reaching out for Viktor with a gentle grip, only noticing the grin on his own face when it wavered, as Viktor turned to look at him, noticeably thrown.

“How is _this_ your era?” Yuuri asked drolly.

Viktor’s expression soured, strangely, into a dumb smile, and Yuuri could feel the corners of his mouth turning down. “It’s the best time to have long hair and it’s fine if I walk around with only a vest on—how is it _not_ my era?”

Yuuri tried to offer a laugh to that, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize something was wrong, between Viktor’s dodgy line of vision and his generally put-off aura, as if Yuuri was unwelcome to look, let alone touch. “What are you looking at?” asked Viktor, voice dripping severity beneath the saccharine. He was so defensive, as if _he_ was the one who had been effectively stood up.

Yuuri stammered looking for his words again. “You’ve been avoiding me…”

“No, _you’ve_ been avoiding _me_ ,” Viktor kept using this tone that made Yuuri feel like a child.

“You weren’t here that Saturday after the skating tournament, what was I supposed to think?”

“I don’t know, Yuuri—there are a thousand reasons why I couldn’t have been there that Saturday that I’m sure you don’t care about and that I surely don’t owe you.”

Viktor looked something ethereal between the yellow-tinted lighting and the long thick wintery locks and the regal flower crown perched on his head, only serving to distance him from the memory Yuuri had of the encouraging and warm-hearted man who, at worst, was perhaps a bit messy, but so collectively _real_. Honest. Authentic. Not playing at a style as much as he was enjoying his own interpretation of a trend, trying to keep Yuuri close instead of pushing him away. Yuuri wondered where he gave off the idea that he didn’t care, what steps he had taken that were ultimately wrong.

“Owe me? I just wanted to see you again.”

Something Yuuri said made Viktor drop the façade almost immediately, dipping into a frown as he rubbed his own forehead, letting his tone return to its normal pacing. “Alright, you can save it, it’s fine, really.”

“…I don’t understand what you mean,” Yuuri shook his head.

“You wanted to ‘see me again’? Come now, Yuuri, let’s call this what it is: we fucked, and that was it,” Viktor shrugged, tossing a long piece of hair over his shoulder with an air of nonchalance. “We had a fun night, and you’re looking for another round of the same, and I get that, but you don’t have to pretend like you like me or anything. It’s just that you don’t have Mari to fall back on tonight, right?”

“ _What?_ ”

“Don’t worry, Minami told me,” Viktor continued, almost completely oblivious to Yuuri’s flinching and heart-palpitating confusion. “And I’m glad you’re starting to get into the swing of how things work around here in San Junipero. I have to say, you’re a quick learner, Yuuri. Your fiancé must be _really_ proud of you.”

Yuuri was losing air, look locked in a cringe as he searched Viktor’s face for answers, doing his best to string words together to even follow-up. “That’s not—she’s not—I thought we _had_ something—”

“Something? Yuuri, I told you. I came here to have fun. This,” Viktor choked, gesturing aimlessly to the space between them, “ _this_ isn’t _fun_.”

Yuuri’s next breath seemed to hollow him out completely, like he’d exhaled every butterfly, every positive interaction they’d had, every inkling that Viktor would actually be into him. Viktor glared at him, waiting for him to answer, and it all felt so terribly final, but he supposed, closure was what he had wanted, and closure was what he got.

“Sorry for wasting your time then,” Yuuri mumbled, glancing down and pushing his thick glasses up to take attention away from the tears forming in his eyes, before quietly turning on his heel and hastening to the nearest exit.

How he made it on the roof was quite simple really—there was just a ladder off to the side was all, low enough for him to get a grip and climb his way up. The exertion was far simpler than Yuuri had ever remembered it being, and he was bitter for it. Bitter at how well his body worked in San Junipero, angry that everything here was so convenient and so beautiful and he absolutely knew that none of it was real, but it hadn’t stopped him from feeling otherwise.

It was interesting, how just as easily crying came to him now, sitting cross legged on the ledge, looking out at the vast array of buildings and lights, as if they had something to tell him.

Maybe five, ten minutes passed before the metal of the ladder began to creak rhythmically, louder with every sound, before Yuuri was no longer alone on the roof.

“You have your plan slider set to zero, _da_?” Viktor asked, timid and sheepish as he methodically sat down beside Yuuri on the ledge, taking a deep breath before he let his bare feet dangle. He must’ve tossed off his skates and his socks before running out of the bar and looking for him, Yuuri noticed, not even taking the time to get a proper pair of shoes on.

Yuuri did not turn to look at him, despite feeling the weight of Viktor’s vision against the numbness of his skin. “Yeah,” he muttered finally. “Yeah, I think so.”

They let the breeze curl and the wind whistle, listening to the distant screams and shouts of the excited souls below, finding where exactly to begin, and if so, who should go first.

It was Viktor, in the end, who took a deep breath and tried, “Alright listen—“

“How many of them are dead?” Yuuri cut him off, wet eyes watching the street below, a pair of young women walking slowly, arm-in-arm, past the dinor and around to the beach.

“As in, full-time residents?” Viktor peer over the ledge as well, racking his brain for a thoughtful estimate. “Maybe three-fourths? Eighty-five percent tops?”

Yuuri nodded thoughtfully, wiping a stray tear that threatened to fall from his lashes before taking in a slow, sharp intake of breath.

“I’m sorry, Yuuri, I didn’t realize how upset you really were,” Viktor said softly, trying to look at Yuuri, but still very obviously distracted by the height.

“I’m not gonna jump,” Yuuri scoffed.

“I’m glad, you really shouldn’t, that would be terrible. But please, I _looked_ for y—”

“Mari’s my sister.”

“ _What?_ ”

Viktor’s eyebrows flew up in to his hairline as he listened to Yuuri, intent and somehow, very small. “I actually started the San Junipero trial run to see if I could find her, but I haven’t been successful so far. That’s how I ran into you.”

“Oh my god,” Viktor released a stiff chuckle, resting a hand against his forehead; Yuuri cracked a smile at that. “I feel so stupid.”

“That’s where I’ve been, if you were wondering. I kept looking for her after I went back that next Saturday, and you weren’t there—”

“And _you_ went to _the Chacked_?”

“I did! It was horrible. I’ve never been so mortified in my entire life, and trust me, embarrassment is not a foreign concept to me,” Viktor nearly snorted at that one, and almost in tandem, they breathed in sighs of relief, in disbelief of their own short-comings.

“I’m sorry, Yuuri,” Viktor offered him a hand, in truce, to shake. “For acting that way in the bar, taking it all so personally.”

“It’s alright, I’m sorry too,” Yuuri offered, his shoulders releasing some tension and relaxing into a posture more welcoming as they shook.

“Viktor, I do have a question, though,” asked Yuuri just as he pulled his hand away, letting it rest on his pants. “What’s the real reason why you didn’t come back that week?”

Viktor groaned, less pained and more shamefaced. “I fell on the ice.”

“No! Really?” Yuuri’s face snapped, his hand finding Viktor’s resting arm fast with concern and intensity.

“Yes!” Viktor smiled reassuringly as Yuuri released some focused tension from his grip without letting go of Viktor’s forearm.

“Are you alright?”

“Ugh, I wish people would stop asking that,” said Viktor, clearly not as distressed as Yuuri was as he rolled his eyes for the dramatics. “I’m fine. Those old bones haven’t let me down yet, I just got a nice big bruise on my good hip, napped through my trial time.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Yuuri replied, finally releasing Viktor’s forearm and relaxing with a quick exhale. “Did you come back the next week, then?”

Viktor took pause to that question. “No, actually. I did the two-thousands, instead.”

“How come?”

Yuuri hoped he hadn’t sounded too accusing as Viktor breathed out a shaky huff, looking at his dangling, kicking feet.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t—”

“I was _scared_.”

“Really?”

“Yes, completely mortified,” Viktor fidgeted with the tassels on his vest, his chest paling in the night air, and compared to the highly cautious and cold unearthly being inside, he now seemed more human than perhaps any other human Yuuri had ever seen before. Starting and stopping his sentences and the dissonance between what he was trying to say and what he wanted to say seemed all to close like a flower blooming to Yuuri, just like the yellow and gold flowers tucked into Viktor’s crown. “I came here, to San Junipero, for entirely selfish reasons. I just wanted to have a good time. I didn’t want to like anyone, I didn’t want to care about anything, and I got scared—”

Yuuri leaned in a bit closer, carefully pushing a stray piece of silver hair away from Viktor’s nose and behind his ear. “What of?”

“Of _this_!” Viktor turned to Yuuri suddenly, eyes watery, making the same gesture he had made in the bathroom like his finger had drawn a circle with the two of them inside. “I was scared of _you_! I don’t know how long there is and I just wasn’t planning on wanting _you_ —”

This time Yuuri initiated the kiss, holding Viktor’s wet face and silky hair in a bunch in his hand, the two of them rocking back and forth on the rooftop. Viktor took no time in returning, breathing irregular as he grabbed hold of Yuuri’s button down. It was an awkward, stumbling, sloppy moment, but then, so was anything vulnerable.

They pulled apart, quick and grinning, when the two girls who’d passed by them earlier whistled from below; Viktor’s hand had made its way into Yuuri’s, like the gesture was nothing but intrinsic.

“We don’t have anything to be scared of, do we?” Viktor asked, standing and helping Yuuri to his feet as well, pulling him close. Yuuri’s free hand curled around his back, and they held one another, chest to chest.

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you want to try again?”

“Absolutely,” Yuuri said without hesitation, letting something playful creep across his lips. “Only if you win gold tonight, of course.” He pulled himself out of the embrace to readjust and tuck in the shirt Viktor had grabbed for, the wrinkle of his grip creasing over.

Viktor threw his head back to stare at the sky, keeping himself from laughing out loud. “ _Wow_. Ouch. We’d better get back down there then.”

“We better.”

Yuuri and Viktor walked hand in hand into Celestino’s—upon their return, Chris was sure, just before he rolled off the rink to call out “Hey: no shirt, no shoes, no service, Nikiforov.”

Viktor got another plastic gold medal and they promised to meet up again next week.

—ONE WEEK LATER—

“Come on, Leo, you know me! Why would I have to pay?”

This week at Celestino’s, circa 1987, Leo and his band were performing during skate time, and only took requests upon receiving a generous 25-cent donation.

“It’s just how it goes,” Leo shrugged. “I don’t make the rules; I simply enforce them.”

Sara rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, waiting expectantly as though it would change Leo’s mind, ignoring Mila’s tugging at her elbow, trying to get away get back to skating. This was the scene that, hand-in-hand, Viktor and Yuuri had rolled up to on Saturday night, just after 7:30.

“What’s wrong, Mila?” asked Viktor, this week in a much more casual windbreaker, unlike his typical suave and stylish leather jackets.

Mila sighed. “Leo, Guang-Hong, and Otabek are only taking requests for a fee, and Sara and I didn’t bring any change,” she replied drolly. Guang-Hong, from behind the drum set, simply shrugged and shook his head; Otabek, completely detached from the argument at hand, filled the room with some full, harmonious chords from his synthesizer.

“Wait a second guys,” Yuuri said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out, miraculously, a quarter. He did it again, and again, and again, until everyone in the circle, including himself, could request a song.

“Ah-ha! You see, Leo!” said Sara proudly, tossing her quarter into Leo’s money jar and writing a song name down on the piece of paper beside it.

“Wait, wait, wait—he gets to go first,” Leo winked, pointing at Yuuri while Sara pouted. “He paid!”

Yuuri let his quarter fall to the bottom of the jar with a clunk, and with a moment of thinking, wrote down the name of his song. He and Viktor skated off with a thanks from Mila, as the first few power notes rang out from the band at the start of a song.

“That was like a magic trick,” Viktor smiled, squeezing Yuuri’s hand.

“It’s just a secret in-code thing. Leo showed me—you can pull anything out of your pockets you might need while you’re here, if it’s small enough,” Yuuri replied.

“Are you as fast as you are smart?”

“ _Wha—”_ And with that, Yuuri was being pulled along the rink, Viktor picking up speed and turning to face him. They only got yelled at for racing around the circle twice, as the first time, they’d been gasping and laughing too hard to notice.

_“When you walk into the room, you pull me close and we start to move. And we're spinning with the stars above and you lift me up in a wave of love~”_

* * *

 

The CSTNO cloud system was a successful American program that had been gaining some traction internationally for its unprecedented connection of short and long-term memory resting within the cortical and subcortical brain systems by way of a virtual community connection—or, in layman’s terms, immersive nostalgia therapy. Electrodes secured on the temples could immerse a user into the year of their choice, anywhere from 1960 and 2020, for five hours a week. Those five hours, with a few rare, if typically mild side effects, enabled better memory recall, improved motor skills, and alleviated mood, particularly in individuals with major degenerative diseases.

 (They learned things about each other. Viktor could throw back any liquor without batting an eyelash, but couldn’t take his coffee black. Yuuri was the man to beat when it came to card games, arcade games, even skipping rocks. Viktor dropped out of school as a teenager, but loved to read those kinds of huge old books about love and romance during war and turmoil. Yuuri had gone to college for physical therapy abroad in America and the thing that’d struck him the most about life there was how willing people were to touch one another. Viktor hardly talked about his adult life unless he was, very rarely, talking about his career. Yuuri very rarely talked about his adult life unless he was talking about his family.)

The “in-between” controversy started on accident—an Alzheimer’s patient in Maine died while in the system, and although their body had stopped functioning, the electrodes continued their circular pattern of light around and around. Scientists found that rather than consciousness ceasing, or proverbially “crossing over”, the patient’s consciousness remained functioning and thriving in the cloud system and did not check out after the five hour duration, nor upon removal from the patient’s temples. It was a scientific breakthrough, revolutionary, unheard of: removing a conscious mind from a deceased vessel.

(They learned things about other people too. JJ and Isabella had had four miscarriages on the outside before they had their only child. Leo had gone into cardiac arrest while in his trial, they’d let him work as a disk jockey to pay off the fee to stay after crossing over, and he decided to just keep doing it because he liked it so much. All his children and their children and all the skaters he’d wound up coaching and their families had come in time to say goodbye to Minami—the hospital room had been overflowing with visitors, he remembered. Chris was still alive and mostly kicking, and was trying to land a date with his handsome occupational therapist on the outside. Mila and Sara had been flames when they were young, but a myriad of life circumstances kept them from being able to reunite until they both qualified for the free trial run.)

The practice of hooking users up to the system before they could flatline quickly and quietly became common practice, a common preference discussed between patient and doctor, were they given the timeframe to even do so before punching the ticket. With the choice of being able to leave the system at the discretion of the individual user, the CSTNO cloud system joined the list of buzzword topics generally dreaded at family dinners, unspoken between politics and religions.

(Skating around the rink swapping stories, Viktor learned that Yuuri’s family had owned a hot springs that garnered attention from tourists far and wide. This had enamored Viktor, who asked if it was all as glamorous as it sounded—Yuuri had tossed his head back, nearly howling, agreeing that yeah, maybe it was glamorous, if you thought scrubbing out wooden tubs and risking the chance of seeing a wrinkly old man butt with every room you entered was glamorous. Viktor asked if they still owned it and Yuuri replied that they wound up selling it a few years back but it was still up and running well as far as he knew—being bed-ridden had made it hard for him to check up on those things, you know. Viktor nodded before really sitting hard on that conclusion, but before he could ask about it, Yuuri released his hand and readied his position to launch into a jump.)

Information about individuals choosing to pass on to the CSTNO cloud systems was classified and locked in patients’ personal files, so that only the personal doctors and the individual themselves knew at the time of passing where the destination was, and the hospital could not be solicited by outside sources for that information. It was a response to religious groups meeting the program with disgust and disdain—people had a hard time, usually, when their values were challenged, but most had an even harder time when their loved ones were mocked and slandered after their deaths.

(Viktor let it slip in the same conversation one night that one—he’d picked San Junipero because it was the opposite of where he grew up, something he didn’t like to think about much, and two—that it’d spread again, this time to his liver, and frankly, he was a little upset about it. The whole interaction was a bit exhausting for him, exhausting enough that Yuuri waited for him, sitting on an aluminum bench as Viktor took a walk around the block, once, twice, three times before returning, this time rambling about food he’d suddenly remembered he’d had in Japan once—katsudon—asking if Yuuri had ever had it.)

They went on like this for a long while, Viktor and Yuuri as a pair, meeting up every weekend for the five hours they were allotted on the San Junipero server, as though it was a simple decision. To the two of them, it was intrinsic, obvious that they would spend their time doing anything they could ever dream of, together. Of course, if you’d asked either one outside of San Junipero what they thought of the other, about the hours they’d logged together, you probably wouldn’t get an answer as much as you’d get a soft smile, a light blush, and a simple _good._ It wasn’t a lie, as much as it was only half of the whole truth. It wasn’t melancholic as much as it was wistful. Whatever it was they had between them, whatever either of them felt like they could call this in the bottoms of their hearts, in the back room of their minds, was between them and them only. It wasn’t a denial to define the relationship, as much as it was a refusal to explain. It was definitely, however, limited, just as the whole of it all had been on impermanent, borrowed time. The point of San Junipero was to experience, and five hours once a week left them just enough time to have a few drinks and skate into the late hours of the night. To lie on the beach, watching the stars in the sky as if now was the first time they’d ever seen them, and where had they been all this time? To let Yuuri hunt for his sister on the nights he’d gotten anxious at the thought of forgetting her, to keep Viktor from binging himself into a stupor, overdoing it on some of the activities he’d never been allowed to do anything but abstain from. To make out like teenagers and dance like fools and eat greasy foods they hadn’t had in years, if ever, and leap off the dock, fully clothed, grinning cheek to cheek.

However, it all came back to beg the same, simple question: how much of a life can you really fit in five hours?

Yuuri was wrapped up in Viktor’s blanket on the porch of the beach house, letting the breeze give him goosebumps between the knit stitching and watching his toes wriggle in the sand. It was a sensation he’d forgotten about before he’d come here, and even though he was doing with his feet just now, he missed it already, inexplicably.

He was pulled from his thoughts as a hand crept up the notches in his spine slow and supportive. Viktor, clad only in his favorite silk robe, took a seat next to him, cigarette dangling from his mouth. Sitting shoulder to shoulder, comfortable in the silence of the night, Yuuri noticed the cigarette didn’t smell like anything.

Viktor released an artful puff of smoke from his nostrils before starting.  “Without this place, you know, I don’t know if I ever would’ve met someone like you.”

Wave upon wave washed up on the sound, current rolling slow and hushing San Junipero into the eleven o’clock hour.

“I don’t know if that’s true…” Yuuri said, weakly.

“It’s almost certainly true, unless you used that physical therapy degree for an Olympic team or something,” Viktor instigated, like he was waiting for Yuuri to hop in. “Or a photographer or even a fellow ice-skater—” Yuuri bit his lip at that one, and Viktor’s eyes went wide. “Wait, were you an ice-skater?”

Yuuri shrugged. “I, uh, did well in a few championships, I guess.”

Viktor looked ecstatic as he begun to ramble. “I had a feeling, just looking at you, especially on the rink, but I wasn’t sure. It’s been so long for me, you know, it all kind of runs together—how well did you do?” Yuuri turned to look at him, watching his eyes light up and smile grow crooked, his hand emphasize his every word enthusiastically. “Maybe we crossed paths! Maybe we have met before!”

Yuuri just shook his head, defeated. “We haven’t met before, trust me,” he replied, dully, pulling the blanket closer to him. “I would definitely remember if I met _the_ Viktor Nikiforov.”

“You had heard of me then, before all of this?”

“Of course.”

“I thought I’d done alright, keeping it under wraps.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Yuuri smirked. “‘ _You’re in the presence of a bit of a local celebrity_ ’—isn’t that what they told me about you, when we first met?”

Viktor flicked the butt of the cigarette way, grinning. “So I’m not quite as good at hiding my figuring skating career as you are, is what you’re saying.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“So what, you aren’t going to tell me anything about your skating?” Viktor drew out his words, dripping in sarcasm. “I told you about mine—really Yuuri, I sucked your cock and now it’s almost midnight and you’re about to make me wait a whole week before you give me a proper answer. That does seem rather unfair, don’t you think?” Yuuri couldn’t help but laugh, feeling his face go red as Viktor laughed at him too, but the happy moment subsided when he’d realized.

Now was as good a time as any to let him know, wasn’t it?

“I—uh—I’m getting married next week, actually,” said Yuuri, sudden and stern, staring at the sand and come and go of the waves. “I won’t be back after that.”

“Next week?” Viktor asked, not quite as disappointed as Yuuri had expected. “To _nice Phichit_?”

“Right,” Yuuri nodded, trying to find the way to explain as he watched Viktor dip into a small frown, coming to see the seriousness of the situation. “He really is wonderful, one of my closest friends, probably. I think he pities me sometimes, which pisses me off a little, honestly, until I remember that’s probably just me believing that about myself.”

Viktor nodded on a drag, blowing smoke out between his lips, whistling through the small ‘o’. “You’re sure you’re going to go through with it?” he whispered, mischievous and boyish in that way that made the corners of Yuuri’s mouth curl.

“I have to. He’s been pulling a lot of strings for me, on the outside. He’s the one who got me here in the first place, when I told him I wanted to see if Mari made it. I was hesitant, but after all, I did meet you,” Yuuri paused, swallowing, knowing Viktor’s eyes had slipped away from the ocean view back onto him like a spotlight that was too warm. “So—uh—what about you? Do you think you’ll cross over here?”

“ _Net_ ,” Viktor shook his head. “Once I’m done, I am _done_. I’ve had enough life, honestly, I’m a little tired now.”

Those words had hung in the air before being swept up in the breeze.

“At least, so I thought.”

“So you thought?”

“Forever on warm sunny beaches, enjoying the music, the places, exciting or not, with someone you love and who loves you back,” Viktor let his words trail off and Yuuri let them drip down his spine and warm up his chest. “Sounds like heaven to me, you know?”

“I do know,” Yuuri affirmed after a deep breath and light blush.

“That daydream plays over and over in the back of my mind when I’m sitting back on the outside, thinking about how I’m going to turn down the offer with every iffy report from the doctor. These last few weeks, it’s gotten a lot, lot harder to think of refusing it.”

In a flash of a thought he knew better than to keep, Yuuri thought of Mari’s 1987 poster, where in place of the couple, it he and Viktor driving along the beach scene coast, happy and .

“I’m glad I met you, Viktor,” said Yuuri; Viktor leaned into the warm body beside him and let Yuuri rest his head on his shoulder.

“Well you know,” Viktor said once they’d adjusted. “You could meet me again, one more time.”

Yuuri’s heart dropped, pulling himself upright and out of the curve of Viktor’s neck. “You’re not—you’re not actually suggesting meeting on the outside?”

“What?” Viktor asked innocently, noting the change Yuuri’s immediate change towards tension. “What’s so bad about that—you worried I’m going to find your secret closet of gold medals or something?”

“No. There’s no closet of gold medals—”

“Then what?”

“You, uh, probably wouldn’t like me,” Yuuri’s voice suddenly went quiet and mousy, his fingers fumbling with the hem of the blanket around his shoulders before letting out a small, awkward laugh. “Or at least, you wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time with me. You’d come visit and then—”

He stopped when Viktor’s laid a firm hand on his forearm. “Try me.”

“What’s the point? Why bother? Where are you, Russia?”

“St. Petersburg,” Viktor said with a nod, eyes glazing over at the mention of something so familiar. “ _Davai._ I showed you mine, so…”

“Hasetsu. _Japan_ ,” Yuuri grimaced. “See? A little too far.”

“I could make it work,” Viktor pondered, after a moment.

“ _Viktor…_ ” Yuuri shook his head.

“It’s not like I don’t have the money, or the help I’d need to get back and forth.”

“Viktor, _please_ —”

“As far as I know, I’m not dying this week, and it’s definitely not as if I don’t have the _time_ at the—”

“I don’t want you to see me, alright?” Yuuri had cut him off with a certain finality; Viktor responded by moving the hand that’d been resting on his blanketed forearm around his shoulders. “I’m scared.”

“And I’m going to die,” Viktor said, almost cheerful. “We’re near the end of this, Yuuri, I’d like to make the most of it. Whatever you’re going to greet me with in Japan, it won’t scare me.”

Yuuri let Viktor place smooth hands on his cheeks, leaning into the warm circles being drawn on his cheekbones. He watched the black water rise and fall, rise and fall, finally finding it in himself to meet Viktor’s eyes straight on, finding that the spotlight they’d put him under was not painful, but seeking a strong affirmative, an approval, an invitation. Yuuri had been so, so afraid Viktor wouldn’t like what he’d find when they first met, and he’d been proved wrong. Some ridiculous concept of the same happening on the outside came and went like the breeze, but at the end of it all, Viktor wanted to _see_ Yuuri, and that broke his heart.

“Please let me come visit—I’d like to say hello.”

Neither of them had been checking the time, but by some goodness of serendipity, Yuuri gave Viktor a small nod before midnight came and went.

—SUNDAY MORNING—

St. Blessed Mother Xenia’s Assisted Living Facility was undoubtedly three steps up from Lefortovo, Viktor thought. He’d been here a few years now, and after a life of constant motion devoted entirely to the ice, this end of the spectrum left him, at his best, compromising and bored. He couldn’t give retirement home lifestyle too much flack, however, as there were a few things he looked forward to day after day—the children who came with baked treats to play him (and beat him) at chess, the divine solyanka soup, and the residents like Mila and staff who seemed to share Viktor’s healthy disdain for St. Blessed Mother Xenia’s as well. Including his current chess partner—another figure skating aficionado, for one, who occasionally came into work an hour early to play (and beat) Viktor at a round.

He knew if he wanted to go to Dr. Lilia with his request for a little trip, he’d need a little support from a professional or two. Judging from the confused snarl painting the face of his other Yuri, Viktor estimated he was probably halfway there.

Black knight took to white pawn; Viktor was down a piece. “Wait, let me get this straight: you want to go all the way to Japan to visit your San Junipero boyfriend?”

Not exactly the story he’d relayed, but alright.

“That’s right,” said Viktor, sliding his rook up two squares with a wobbling hand.

His regular nurse scoffed in return, disapproving, ponytail swaying with the back and forth of his head.

“What’s that for—the trip or that move?”

Yuri’s bishop seemed to come out of nowhere, effectively trapping Viktor’s rook and a few other key pieces. “Seems stupid to me,” he shrugged, waiting until he was absolutely sure before taking his hand off of the bishop. “I mean, he’s not even going to recognize you, unless you’re a bald, wrinkly old coot in San Junipero, too.”

Viktor tutted with the jest, doing his best not to let a hand slide up to rub the bald scalp he’d still been disappointed in, despite being hairless for a solid decade now. “It wounds me that you refuse to believe that I am every bit the bodacious sex god here as I am in San Junipero.” Pawn to pawn—Viktor took what he could get.

Instead of a counter move, the pieces shook with a brief slam of the table. “Ugh, that’s disgusting! I don’t want to hear you speak anymore! You’re _ridiculous_.”

Viktor couldn’t help but laugh, eyes closing in glee. “This is why you’re my favorite nurse, Yurio.” It was also the source of Viktor’s ongoing curiosity as to how exactly Yuri kept his job, although he knew realistically it was because he was a diligent worker who never complained once about his workload. Also, probably because the old ladies here found him to be so damn cute, and it was common knowledge that a cute nurse was good for morale.

Yurio’s nose scrunched up, blue eyes turning baffled. “What the _hell_ did you just call me, old man?”

“Yuuri is the name of the man we’re going to visit in Japan. I’ll have to be able to tell the difference between the two of you, so no one gets confused, so I suppose your name must be Yurio now.”

“No way! You’ve known me longer, the other Yuri should have the nickname!”

“I believe I heard somewhere something about Japan using terms of honor to respect their grown men, therefore the nickname clearly wouldn’t suit Yuuri as much as it would suit you,” Viktor smiled.

Yurio fumed, hastily moving his rook to the center of the board to claim yet another pawn. “What exactly are you implying now?”

Viktor simply gave a light, hoarse chuckle and continued to play, smiling at Yurio’s pseudo-chagrin. This nurse was, after all, the closest thing to family Viktor really had left, unless he counted the few old students of his that periodically came to see him or the few other residents who he found conversation with to be both easy and enjoyable (as opposed to just one or the other). Yurio was a friend, and judging by the smirk that occasionally flickered across his thin face, the sentiment was returned to Viktor.

The match wasn’t shaping up well for Viktor, when mid-move, Yuri sat back in his chair, looking puzzled. “Yuuri, you said—what’s his last name? If we want visiting hours, it might be good to get specific on the name, so we don’t wind up in someone else’s room?”

“You sound awfully sure Dr. Lilia is going to sign off on my release.”

“If I go with you, she won’t say no,” Yurio replied with a shrug. “So we need to start planning now.”

“Katsuki,” said Viktor, after a moment. “Yuuri Katsuki.”

Yurio scrunched up his nose, looking back at Viktor like he was stupid. “Wait, don’t you know him?”

“I don’t know if you’ve been listening, but I’ve been seeing Yuuri Katsuki for five hours a week, for the past few months.”

“No, no, no—in real life? You know him, he used to ice skate too, didn’t he? I think I kept a poster of him as a kid. Kind of fell off the face of the earth after a bad season, but he was there. Good motion, flubbed his jumps usually.”

“That sounds like him. He said he’d skated before, but didn’t seem to want to talk about it much, so I let it go,” said Viktor. “I think he’s younger than me, though. I don’t think we ever competed together, or else I would probably would’ve remembered him.”

Yuri let out an unimpressed _pfft_ , as he put Viktor into checkmate. “Do you really think so?”

Viktor frowned, both at the chessboard and to himself. To put it simply: no.

Later, he searched Yuuri’s name online, stumbling upon several old videos of the familiar face and figure, soaring across the ice like he’d been born in skates. Yurio had been right—he seemed to always tense up right before a jump—but his motion, his footwork, his emphasis, his sense of time and space were to die for. He watched almost everything he could find, from the tiny, round-faced gold winner in juniors, all the way up to the struggling, emotionally compromised senior skater, falling three jumps in a row at nationals. And that’s where the programs seemed to end, and Viktor almost shut off his screen then and there.

However, in the bottom corner of the page sat a short video titled “Sochi Banquet Dance Off”, and Viktor could hardly stop himself from clicking out of curiosity. He’d been to what was likely hundreds of banquets in his life, not one particularly memorable from another and he found now that they mostly just blurred together in one vague memory of champagne, nice suits, and conversation with people he both enjoyed considerably or considerably less so. Viktor clicked on it, shamelessly, to see if by serendipity, he’d be able to find Yuuri in the background.

The video started with some inaudible shouting in some romantic language Viktor couldn’t quite place, camera pointed at the faux-wooden dance floor. The view was shaky, bothersome enough that Viktor nearly clicked out of the video, when suddenly the camera swung up to eye level, pointed towards two men, dancing and laughing just a few feet away. They looked like they were trying to establish a sort of back and forth, a sway and a rhythm, each in their own separate, unique style when, oh—Viktor realized he was one of them. Everything came to him like a checklist of reminders: he remembered that suit, he remembered having that much hair, believe it or not, and he faintly remembered the words to the song playing in the background. He was almost grateful that he’d ever had this much fun—the kind that was making his walking cane-less self in the video sport rubicund cheeks and laugh between the gasps for air—the dancers spun and square in the frame was the face of Viktor’s partner.

_Oh._

He hit the pause button. Viktor couldn’t believe it hadn’t hit him sooner—whether he wanted to blame the CSTNO system, or the fact that he’d grown more forgetful in his old age, or that he’d always been a bit careless about names and faces if he was being honest. It was coming back to him now, but it’d just occurred him, just then, that the Yuuri Katsuki who Viktor had been seeing for months now was the same Yuuri Katuski from the banquet. _The_ banquet. He, Viktor Nikiforov, had found Yuuri Katuski. The ice skater. _From the banquet._ The one that had swept Viktor off his feet some forty-odd years ago in Sochi _and_ just last week, in San Junipero. Had it been so long he wasn’t even able to recognize him? The fearless drunk and miraculous, infatuating dancer, Yuuri Katuski, had tried to challenge him, Viktor Nikiforov, to a dance-off. Had so obviously flirted with him. Had lived in the back of Viktor’s mind for months. And the mess of contradictions, of bashfulness and sarcasm and lust and love, Yuuri Katuski, had challenged him, Vikitor Nikiforov, in a _roller-rink_ of all places, still as graceful on his feet as ever. Had been so shy but so determined to just see Viktor again. Had lived with Viktor for five hours a week for months. In San Junipero.

Oh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Track list!!!  
> "Feel Good Inc."- Gorillaz (when Viktor is at Celestino's in 2005)  
> "Always Be My Baby"- Mariah Carey (when Yuuri is at Celestino's in 1999)  
> "Fame"- David Bowie (when Viktor is at Celestino's in 1975)  
> "Suspicious Minds"- Elvis Presley (when Yuuri arrives at Celestino's in 1969)  
> "Heaven is a Place on Earth"- my girl Belinda Carlisle, as performed by Leo and the band in 1987  
> Also if it's hard to understand, Yuuri and Viktor spend four weeks apart. Here's the breakdown:
> 
> Week 1: Yuuri in 1987, Viktor resting after his fall (planning on going to 1999)  
> Week 2: Yuuri in 1999, Viktor in 2005  
> Week 3: Yuuri in 2005, Viktor in 1987  
> Week 4: Yuuri in 1987, Viktor in 1975  
> (Week 5: Both Viktor and Yuuri in 1969)
> 
> ((Reviews have been generous so far and I appreciate any I may get in the future! Thanks so much for the continued support!))


	4. but i'm not afraid anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alright so this is definitely the biggest chapter as far as trigger warnings go so if you have a thing about hospitals, death and dying, euthanasia, or any related topics--this is your warning.
> 
> Also, since this AU is based off an already established piece of work, that's where all the medical """stuff""" comes from in this chapter i.e. some of it may not be 100% the exact experience of anyone with this particular condition, and was mostly just portrayed for the drama/plot/etc. I also did my best with some of the legal details, which again, are mostly in place for drama/plot purposes, especially when you look at the context (no spoilers but TIME and DATE).
> 
> Otherwise, thank you for the support thus far and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

—MONDAY AFTERNOON—

Phichit, with a bounce in his step and a natural air in his voice, always brought Yuuri a side of gossip with his dinner. Yuuri usually didn’t have much to share in return, at least until recently, once he became all about the improved jumps and the actually making friends and the _Viktor_. It was real conversation, it had been good, and Yuuri was and always had been grateful for their evenings together. Even today, when Phichit had come in a bit softer, sneakers light on the tile floor, telling Yuuri he had both good news and bad news.

“Which one do you want first?”

“The bad news,” Yuuri responded, with little hesitation.

“It’s about Mari.”

A pause.

“I still want to know.”

Katsuki Mari had died suddenly, just a year or so ago, after being ejected from her vehicle after a bad accident in the night. Despite all of the pleading and legal work Yuuri and the rest of their loved ones had done to learn what her final destination was, where she’d chosen to move onto, those answers were restricted and classified, and that had been that.

Of course, until Phichit offered to help. He knew a guy, or so he’d told Yuuri, who knew a guy who knew a guy who worked at the hospital Mari had been taken to in a neighboring county who would be able to tell him what had happened, hopefully. In the meantime, Phichit encouraged him to find her in the CSTNO free trial—even if he didn’t find her, he might wind up liking it there! It might fun, being young and hot again, and what did he have to lose anyway?

That conversation was almost seven months ago. Today, Phichit shared, eyes sad and voice slow, that Mari hadn’t gotten the chance to choose, exactly, between the cloud system or passing over. They’d gotten there too late, he explained soft and slow, gently stroking Yuuri’s hand in his own. Yuuri would not find her in San Junipero, and that was that.

Somewhere during the confession, just after the confirmation that Mari was, in fact, deceased, Yuuri’s mind drifted to a conversation he’d had with his sister just before she passed. He had to admit he was surprised it wasn’t her appetite for the deep-fried foods that added weight to his belly just by looking at them or her decades-long smoking habit that got to her first. She had actively joked, for years, that these would surely be her downfall, in that pitch black sort of humor she’d always had. And it was that pitch black humor that, as the sun had set over Hasetsu, turning the sky pink and the water into a river of crystals, had become a bit greyer than normal. Not as blunt or as harsh, and maybe somewhat wistful. Off-handedly and unusually timid for her deep, gravelly voice, she mentioned how she’d heard about this American system for ancient old rags like the two of them, how it lets people run around like idiot twenty-somethings for five hours a week. How you could run around and get drunk and swim and eat what you wanted and dress how you wanted and have _fun_. There were a few setting options available—big loud cities, stunning ski-resorts, and her personal favorite, the seaside town with a beach wrapped nearly all the way around.

“You’d want to do something like that?” Yuuri had asked. Mari had shrugged and given him a stream of _eh_ , _whatever_ , and _you knows_ before settling, turning to look at him head-on.

“It’d only be fun by myself for a little while—you know me, I get bored easily. I’d probably only want to go if you went. I think you deserve it.”

Perhaps saying “I love you” took fewer words and less effort, but it wasn't _them_ and they’d only used that phrase a handful of times over their lives, never having the chance to start after that conversation. At the time, Yuuri had let it sit, cherished in his heart because despite his disagreement on what exactly he deserved, the thought of the two of them, looking how they had and just walking the beach like they did when life was simplistic and nothing but possibility, had kept him warm until he learned the following morning of her accident.

Phichit let Yuuri cry for a long time and didn’t keep track of how much time he’d taken to calm back down. He understood, at least in that outside perspective that nurses always had—people had a hard time, usually, mourning once, but most had an even harder time with the gritty details afterwards, if they decided to hear them at all. Yuuri, naturally, was less forgiving of himself, as he tried to explain that he had gotten his own hopes up, that nothing had really changed. He almost apologized for crying, but Phichit wiped his tears before he could do so, keeping at least one hand in his like an anchor in the waves.

Once Yuuri’s breathing returned to something consistent, Phichit reminded him, with a small glint of mischief in his eyes, that he had good news too, remember? They’d gotten a call today about visiting hours for Friday, he explained, someone named Viktor specifically wanted to know if Yuuri would be available.

“Of course, I told him I had to check your schedule, as you’re a very busy man and this is incredibly short notice…”

“ _Phichit!_ ”

“I’m kidding! I gave him all the details—I hope he was listening well enough, I don’t even think he listened well enough for my name. He just kept asking how you were doing.”

Yuuri felt his cheeks glow at that, a countering sense of tenderness glowing throughout his chest in replacement of the collapse and numbness that had come from his crying. It never wouldn’t be a struggle for him, deciding what exactly he did and did not deserve. Today, however, he skipped the determining what he deserved and moved straight to the claiming of what surely would be his; he hadn’t been alright just a moment or two ago, he likely wouldn’t feel alright for the whole rest of the night, if he was to be frank. But he would be just fine very soon, thank you.

 

—FRIDAY AFTERNOON—

Viktor hadn’t listened well enough at all, story of his life. He’d never been good at that, had he?

The cloud translated languages between users who otherwise wouldn’t be able to communicate, and it was a service that Viktor had admittedly taken for granted and indeed underestimated. Especially now that he was realizing how rusty his English had gotten in real time, and how much disastrously worse his already incredibly simple Japanese was. Yurio was much more fluent in English, which would’ve been a wonderful asset had anyone else spoken it since landing in Japan, leaving the two of them, for the most part, winging it in a foreign country.  They made it to the hospital alright, once Viktor remembered which hospital it was, but finding the high-dependency unit had been its own mess, as the pair of them took turns guessing the meaning of, the elevator’s instructions what floor it was exactly that they were searching for.

All eyes seemed to be on the two of them at every turn, a sight to see no doubt—a skinny old man with his big nose and his walking cane, arm and arm with his towering, super-model of a nurse. Yuri’s sense of fashion encouraged Viktor, quite frankly, his almost entirely black and studded ensemble a fascinating contrast with the nurturing pastels of the painted walls and linoleum floors. Where Yurio dared to polarize, Viktor kept his flat pageboy cap on indoors, out of what he assured was simply habit and not at all an attempt to cover his bald head (not that anyone would’ve been surprised to see it, Yuri had chastised). Unfazed and determined, Yuri hardly noticed when nurses and patients alike stopped to notice him, some out of fear, some out of attraction, some a bit of both—Viktor had made sure to wave kindly at each one.

“Can you wipe that mindless smile of yours off your face long enough to help me look, old man?” Yuri remarked, giving a tug at their interlocked elbows.

“I’m simply giving the people what they want, Yurio.”

“You’re delusional. Also, stop calling me that.”

It’d been nearly 45 minutes of wandering through the halls and corridors before they turned the right corner on the right floor to find the right place, close to the top of the building overlooking a picturesque view of Hasetsu and its waterfront. The attendant at the front desk did her best with her limited English, but thankfully knew just enough to hear the name “Viktor Nikiforov” and immediately connect it with “Ah! Visitor for Katsuki Yuuri! I’ll call nurse!”

They waited just a bit longer, Yuri beginning to tap his boot erratically in his impatience; Viktor noticed, through the window and up so high, a few tiny, wandering beach-goers, hand in hand, occasionally throwing a bright red ball to their fetch-playing dog.

“You must be Viktor! Right this way,” an stoic and impersonal white coated woman brought Viktor’s attention from the window and down through another hall. “I understand it’s your first time visiting—you should know he’ll be able to completely understand you, but his last stroke made conversation almost impossible without a commbox. I’ll see if I can get one from the back for you.” Viktor nodded in reply, despite not quite understanding what the doctor meant much at all.

Viktor, admittedly, had come to Hasetsu with no expectations, knowing better than to take Yuuri’s doomsday vision of this day without a healthy dose of doubt. Yuuri was nothing if not honest, but kind when it came to others, although was almost always a disaster in his own eyes—Viktor hadn’t needed long to learn he needed to take the sugar with the salt when it came to him sometimes. This knowledge, and the lack of expectations certainly softened the realization at his feet and across the room, as Viktor put two and two together once he’d stepped into the small, carefully kept hospital room. He decided rather calmly that, yes—the man in the bed was Yuuri. It had to be Yuuri. The room was labeled so, that being his first clue. He was the right age too. Old, something Viktor always found relief in seeing in someone else—hair that was normally a thick black was a much thinner grey, stomach soft and rotund, hands mere evidence of the years gone by. Viktor recognized almost all of it, emphasis on the _almost_. Breathing tube secured at the neck, laying back on the crème sheets, gaze unwavering from the ceiling—all of this was new, and perhaps, a bit of a surprise. Yuuri had once, rather insouciantly mentioned he was bed-ridden, Viktor supposed he was indeed, correct.

He eventually let go of Yurio’s arm and paced towards the bed, the light and steady beeping of the machine against the wall and its inhales and exhales keeping the time like a metronome. Taking hold of the bed rail, Viktor’s brow relaxed upon seeing Yuuri’s face—his actual face, worn and round and indeed the spitting image of the one he’d come to know so well—wondering what exactly about this was meant to scare him away.

“Hello Yuuri,” Viktor whispered, leaning down to his ear, taking another weathered and wrinkled hand in his. “I’m so happy to see you.”

Viktor didn’t get much of a response upon rising tall again, other than a warm pair of brown eyes following him, in some expression of disbelief. Then a blink, a twitch of the eyebrows, the faint ghosting of words on his lips perhaps, and another, shocked blink.

_"You, uh, probably wouldn't like me. Or at least, you wouldn't want to spend a lot of time with me. You'd come and visit and then—”_

“You seemed a bit stressed,” Viktor said, reading himself too as somewhat anxious, giving Yuuri’s motionless hand a light squeeze. “Perhaps you should _lie down_ …”

“You stupid old man…” Yurio snorted, shaking his head back and forth.

No clinician in sight returning with any form of communication for Yuuri, Viktor filled the room with his creaky, leathery voice as he just talked. It was heavy with accent, he knew, and at moments likely incorrect in meaning, but Yuuri seemed committed, devoted to each word, so he ventured on. He talked about the weather, about how much smoother planes flew these days, about how Mila’s health had been on the up-and-up since her bad cold last week, as she’d wanted him to know. He rambled, too, about the beach they’d passed in the car, how the seagulls’ cries were just like St. Petersburg, and he wondered aloud what the castle at the top of the hill was. He even introduced Yurio, who was otherwise planted, arms crossed in the corner, trying to give the pair their space—Viktor could tell his story-telling had struck a chord when Yuuri’s heart rate accelerated as he spoke about the videos he’d seen of Yuuri’s career at Yurio’s push. Did Yuuri know there were posters made of him? Yurio had a poster of him, growing up. Viktor laughed and laughed, drawing circles into Yuuri’s palm as Yurio sputtered and protested. Yuuri’s eyes followed him carefully the entire time, expressing deeply whatever it was he was feeling, hanging on everything Viktor said, and not once did Viktor feel like he was just talking to himself.

They’d missed most of visiting hours, the doctor that had shown them in came back after 45 minutes to ask Viktor and Yurio to leave, apologizing that their commboxes only translated to Japanese. Viktor tried not to frown too hard, knowing those full brown eyes were watching him the whole time, and the idea of the last image Yuuri would have of him was one being clearly sad seemed unfair; on the same note, it felt painfully premature, separating when he’d just gotten here, when they were finally together.

He didn’t separate their hands until he absolutely had to.

Viktor pushed back the few stray locks on Yuuri’s forehead and planted a sweet kiss, right in the center. Something unreadable flooded Yuuri’s eyes, full of some emotion he was unable to express and would never be able to, the rest of his body motionless and calm beneath the sheets. Viktor kept his neck craned as he was pulled away, saying goodbye one, two, three times, his eyes locked on Yuuri’s as he was led out of the room and back out into the hall. This sadness wasn’t desperate—it was hardly sadness and closer to a rejection.

It couldn’t all be over, it didn’t feel like the end at all.

“ _No way!_ ” a voice, finally, in a relaxed English, steady enough for Viktor to follow. He stopped slowly, turning to scan the hall for whomever the familiar voice belonged to before finding a short, handsome man, skin tanned and hair ink-black, just a bit older than Yurio probably, in green scrubs and white sneakers. “You—you’re Viktor right? Viktor Nikiforov?”

“That would be me, yes,” Viktor nodded to the man, who inexplicably, however endearingly, lit up upon confirmation.

“Phichit!” The man pointed to himself, nodding like he was letting Viktor in on a punchline. “Phichit Chulnot—well, about to be Phichit Chulnot-Katsuki, if you want to get specific. We talked on the phone earlier this week!”

Viktor, admittedly, had ignored the fact that Yuuri had had a fiancé—a lot of people came to San Junipero sans spouses, looking, like him, just to have a good time. He never would’ve pushed Yuuri for more information, gathering from his attitude that it was a marriage of convenience at the very most. He hadn’t quite gathered, however, that Phichit was his young, handsome nurse. It was almost laughably scandalous, particularly for someone like Yuuri.

And wouldn’t the ladies back at Blessed St. Xenia’s have a field day when they heard marrying a young, handsome nurse had been in the cards for _someone_ out there?

Viktor couldn’t help but let a genuine grin spread across his face, matching Phichit’s wide, bright smile. “Wow, that’s amazing. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Phichit reached Viktor, shaking his hand with both of his in a steady, firm grip. Doing the same to Yurio, he asked “Is this your son?”

“Yes,” replied Viktor, quick and cheeky; Yurio gave him a light swat with his free arm.

“ _No,_ I’m his _nurse_ ,” Yuri said, nearly between his teeth as he put on his best smile. “Yuri Plisetsky. Nice to meet you.”

Unfazed and upbeat, Phichit began to walk with them, putting a supportive hand on Viktor’s shoulder as the trio managed to navigate through the busy hospital halls. “Listen, I think it’s really great that you came down here before Yuuri passes over—”

“Wait, hold on, _he’s passing over_? When? I—I don’t…” Viktor interrupted, words spilling and stammering as his smile faded, his feet beneath him still and planted. Passes over? Yuuri? _His Yuuri_? All Viktor could do was shake his head, feebly attempting to force it all to make sense. “When? I thought you two were getting married?”

Phichit and Yurio exchanged a sympathetic look towards one another, a bit of nurse-to-nurse understanding or sympathy or something that meant they knew exactly what was going on while Viktor continued to struggle. “We should talk about it over coffee,” Phichit offered, tone sheepish but still fresh. “My shift doesn’t start for another 20 minutes, so…”

The hospital cafeteria was just a floor up, a bit buzzier than the dining hall back at Viktor’s nursing home, if more sterile. Everything seemed to be painted in a blank, harmless white, minus the nurses’ patterned scrubs and the black coffee sitting before Viktor, appearing more abruptly than he had anticipated. He added two creams, two sugars as he always did, and began to stir.

“He didn’t tell you?” Phichit began, gentle and sensitive.

“No, I suppose he did not,” Viktor sighed—Yuuri had shared just enough. Viktor couldn’t really blame him, of course, as he’d spent his whole life doing exactly the same thing. It had been a safety net of sorts, no one soul knowing everything there was to know about Viktor Nikiforov besides Viktor Nikiforov. Unlike him, however, he’d known Yuuri to be selfless; he was the kind to keep it close to spare Viktor’s feelings. It was a sweet idea, if a bit too late. “He said he was just visiting, then he was going to get married.”

“Well, initially, anyway. It took some convincing, but he’d ultimately decided he would go if only to see if his sister had made it there after she died,” Viktor and Yurio nodded, nearly in tandem. “He and I talked over the commbox—he’s probably my favorite patient, you see—and he’d really wanted the chance to sit with her and _actually talk_ , like they used to.”

Viktor took a long sip of his drink, listening only to Yurio’s fidgeting leg beneath the table.

“He tell you about how he became quadriplegic?” Viktor shook his head. Phichit rested his steaming cup down on the table, leaning forward in his chair as his voice got lower.

“It was some kind of ice-skating accident.” Viktor’s vision froze, like no one and nothing around him was moving except Phichit’s mouth. “He’d had a really bad season, I guess, and he was pretty shook up about it all. 23 years old, on the rink he’d been training on his whole life by himself in the middle of the night, he’s trying this program he’d seen someone do before, done by an idol of his. He said he’d been going at it for hours and at one point, he just, gave out? Wiped out so bad on the ice he couldn’t move from the neck down. Had to lay there for hours before a childhood friend who’d owned the place finally found him.”

And suddenly, it all made sense. Just everything about this story, and its deep and messy entanglement with their whole crazy situation. Yuuri’s simultaneous hesitancy and drive to skate, his consistently messy, sometimes fearful jumps, his denial of a body he hadn’t been used to having at all, his immediate awkwardness at the very idea of someone looking at him, why Viktor had never seen him again after that special banquet in Sochi. His image on it all had at this moment gone clear, and the only thing he could imagine was Yuuri—both the one on the floor below in the bed and the one he’d grown to know so well, back in San Junipero—alone, face down on the ice in the silence of an empty rink, haunting without the constancy of blades making the rounds.

Just thinking about it made his blood run cold and freeze his bones over, stomach sick and eyes heavy.

“When he was only 23?” Yurio implored, his investment pulling Viktor out of his head.

“More than 40 years back, yeah,” Phichit nodded solemnly. “At the time, his family thought they’d try this up and coming treatment to see if it improved his condition at all. It wound up being something new every few years for him, and Yuuri’s a fighter, so he kept trying until eventually, well, there was nothing left to try. He made the most of it, and he’d been doing pretty alright until he had that bad stroke. As you can imagine, the CSTNO systems were a huge deal for him, if he hadn’t been so hesitant about it all.”

“I’ve never had a patient who was hesitant about trying the cloud system. Ever,” said Yurio, hardly noticing Viktor’s knowing smirk. “If anything, I’ve had patients who were hesitant about leaving the cloud system.”

“Trust me, Yuuri’s in a category _all_ his own,” Phichit gave a soft chuckle, turning mostly to face Viktor has he continued. “Although he was warming up to it a bit—even said he’d pass over there for a little while before really passing over. There’s really no catch for people who ultimately decide to leave permanently, although I don’t think that’s the exact reason why he’s giving it a shot—I’m sure you _you’re_ aware you had a little something to do with that.”

Viktor didn’t mean to blush. “Yes, I suppose I might have.”

“You’re on the five hour weekly limit, right?”

“They ration it out, don’t really trust us with any more than that,” Viktor sighed.

“They say you go nuts if you have too much, you know,” Phichit explained as he sat back in his seat, shooting them a wince for emphasis. “You dissociate constantly, don’t leave your seat—supposedly some people have a hard time with memory recall from the outside once they’re in.”

“As if that isn’t already happening in every senior home already,” Yuri muttered; thankfully, Phichit was gracious enough to not take offense at his unintentionally abrasive tone, Viktor noticed. “Immersive nostalgia therapy is what it is—just ineffective if you do too much all at once. Helped my grandpa loads with his Alzheimer’s. This one too, with his memory, although I don’t think his is pathological as much as it is laziness.”

“Small mercies,” said Phichit, raising his paper coffee cup in credit before pressing it to his lips.

The hustle and bustle of hospital filled the conversational silence between them, the conversation that would only last about five more minutes before Phichit had to punch in and start his evening rotations. Viktor had just a few more questions, things he’d needed to clear up, when almost out of nowhere, he had an idea.

“So,” he began, a smile beginning to unfold across his face, “about this marriage…”

“Right, I’m sure you want all the details,” Phichit nodded. “The law has a triple lockdown on these kinds of euthanasia cases, so people don’t try to cross over just for the sake of crossing over to a place like San Junipero. Yuuri needed to sign-off, but also needed the green light from a doctor and an immediate family member. And since his immediate family have all passed on…”

“A spouse can do the job,” Yurio finished, slow and deliberate.

“Hence the wedding bells,” Viktor said.

“That’s right. An official is supposed to come in tomorrow, and Yuuri’s scheduled to pass sometime in the late afternoon. No flowers, no cake, no nothing.”

Viktor stroked his chin. “Are you going to wear a suit?”

“Sadly no,” Phichit replied, laughing warm and deep from his belly, “the ceremony’s on my lunch—that being said, a few family friends wanted to come and be there for the moment. Yuuri has many loved ones still around, but I’m really the only one who can do the honor, y’know?”

“You’re a good man, Phichit.”

“So are you. Most people don’t like their fiance’s paramour this much,” Viktor nearly snorted as Phichit shrugged, appreciative if a bit abashed. “It’s the least I can do for him, truthfully.”

Viktor reached across the table, taking Phichit’s free hand in his own from where it had been resting casually. He put on his best, most practiced, kindest old man smile, turning his voice saccharine, just as he did with the children who came to play board games with him on Saturday afternoons. “Well, maybe not the _least_ —there is _one tiny thing_ you could do, just for the two of us.”

“Oh no,” interjected Yurio, although his words would fall on deaf ears.

“What’s that?” Phichit probed.

“No,” Yurio tried again. “No, no. _Absolutely not, Nikiforov_.”

Batting his eyelashes for emphasis, putting on a meek grin—Phichit was right where Viktor wanted him. “Do you think you could hook us up to the system now?”

That was met with a look of incredulity, but definitely not negative feedback. “Any reason why?”

Viktor leaned in as far as the table would let him, just as Phichit had done earlier, like he had a secret plan like a spy or a hero. “I’m sorry to break it to you, Phichit, because you’ve been so wonderful, but I’ve come for the princess. _I’m_ whisking Cinderella off to the castle instead.”

“Wait—you’re _what_?” Yurio nearly shouted, garnering a smarmy shush from a woman seated behind him.

Phichit’s eyes grew wide and wild after a few seconds of unsure and perplexed brows before putting two-and-two together, just as Viktor had anticipated he would. “Are you talking about—right! Yes! Absolutely! I’ll see what I can do!”

* * *

As it turned out, Phichit Chulanot could do anything. It took all but twenty minutes before Viktor and Yurio were back in Yuuri’s room, prepping the temple electrodes and relaxation tehniques as designated by the CSTNO system.

“Viktor,” Phichit toyed with the remote control,standing next to where Viktor was hooked up in the corner seat in Yuuri’s room, ready for takeoff. Destination: San Junipero. “You have five minutes, that’s all I can give you.”

Viktor gave a single nod, hardly able to contain a smile. “Thank you.”

Phichit didn't give a countdown like the nurses back at home did before they pressed the top button on the remote.

It was never quite instant, the transition from the real world to the San Junipero cloud—longer than a blink, but shorter than two blinks—but today, right then, it was almost too long. Phichit had said he would try to spit them out on the beach, but the beach stretched on for miles and here they were, too far apart for Viktor’s liking as he found himself sprinting and stumbling through the sand towards the avatar of a man who in actuality, was only an arm’s reach away. Yuuri’s back was to him, looking straight out of a painting or art piece like he belonged in a gallery, pants rolled up to his calves, his button up hardly buttoned and uncharacteristically untucked.

The expression painted across his face upon hearing his name called, turning and catching the breeze, had Viktor nearly flying.

“I’ve never been here during the day! It’s beautiful!” Yuuri exclaimed, running to meet Viktor halfway, eyes just as incredulous and brilliant as they’d been back in the hospital room. They collided in a mess of arms and legs, standing strong in the sun and wind. Viktor felt Yuuri’s lips mouth something like “ _you came_ ” against his chest.

“Of course I did.”

Yuuri looked up at him, his glasses skewed on the bridge of his nose. “Your pun was terrible.”

“I know, I know it was.”

“Your voice is beautiful.”

Viktor blushed like a twelve year-old as they separated a few mere inches. “Hey listen, I’m on a time limit right now, so we’ll have to make this quick.”

“Any reason why?”

“I asked Phichit if I could talk to you again, it’s important. Important enough that I needed to tell you in person, or at least, well, you know,” said Viktor, stammering over the best way to go about this while Yuuri’s brown eyes twinkled at him in something like confusion, but wholly affection.

Viktor swallowed, running a hand through his hair. “You’re passing over tomorrow?”

Yuuri looked down at his feet, abashed and guilty. “Yeah, few hours after the wedding—I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to worry about me…”

“ _Shh, shh,_ hey, it’s alright. But listen: I’m going to say something crazy.” Yuuri’s head shot back up to look Viktor square in the eye, the corners of his cheeks, still a bit red, twinging upwards.

“How crazy?”

“Well...”

Viktor dropped to both knees, taking both of Yuuri’s hands and holding them close. “Listen, Phichit seems like a real doll, but,” Yuuri seemed to have stopped breathing; the vision of looking up at him in the sunlight took Viktor’s breath away. “Why not marry me, instead? Someone you’re already connected to?”

One blink, two blinks, three blinks—surely it had been a lifetime.

Yuuri simply melted into an expression that overflowed with joy, so remarkably giddy that Viktor couldn’t help but laugh. This made Yuuri laugh, which made Viktor laugh more as he tried and tried again to spit out some kind of answer that eventually just turned into nodding and tears before he dropped to his knees to hug Viktor around the neck.

“I’m going to take this as a ‘yes’,” Viktor half-choked into Yuuri’s shoulder, voice wet but happy.

They stayed like that for longer than two blinks, inhaling and exhaling into each other’s shoulders, but still not long enough for Viktor’s liking.

“Wait, just before you go,” Yuuri leaned back, reached into his pocket and pulled out two matching, gold bands—his magic trick of sorts. “You know, to make it official?” he said, thick and sweet, laughing upon seeing Viktor’s stunned expression.

“You inspire me,” said Viktor, taking one of the rings, kneading it in his palm.

“And you never cease to surprise me,” said Yuuri, entwining their free hands in one easy swivel and holding them to his chest.

“You’ll wait for me, won’t you?” Viktor asked, suddenly feeling rather small as his small-sounding words nearly got swept away in the breeze.

Yuuri kissed him, light and chaste. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”

They had just enough time to sloppily slide the rings onto each other’s fingers, giggling lovely phrases that came out half-nonsense mostly, before another second past, and Viktor was no longer on the beach, but back in the hospital room in Hasetsu. Never in his life had any piece of gold encircled his heart like this, had soothed his mind and sent sparks through his bloodstream—and he wasn’t even wearing it now. He wondered how he looked peering past them to get a good look at the individual in the bed, surrounded by inquisitive, somewhat perplexed faces, nurses who didn’t know he’d just gotten engaged.

Ah. Engaged. At 71 years old, Viktor Nikiforov was engaged to be married to Yuuri Katsuki.

“So?” asked Phichit, round face brimming with optimism, as he removed the adhesive electrode from Viktor’s temple.

Viktor took a deep breath, gratefully taking the paper cup of water offered to him by another, unnamed clinician before he took the hand of his own nurse. “Yurio,” he whispered softly, his cheekiest smile possible creeping onto his face. Yurio’s face was so grim, eyebrows rutted like Viktor was about to give his dying wishes—it was _hysterical_.

“Would you,” Viktor loved dramatic emphasis, “like to be my best man?”

_“Oh my god.”_

* * *

It took a few phone calls, plus a few more break and work shift bargains on Phichit’s end, but it only took until the autumn sun went down before Viktor stood by Yuuri’s bed side, as Yurio fastened a pink carnation to his sweater with a safety pin, attitude bordering on frustration. The ceremony would start shortly—Phichit had convinced a rather reluctant government official to stop by on his way home from the office, by some miraculous intervention. He was cleaning bed plates at that moment then, unfortunately, as Yuuri’s living friends and relatives filed in one-by-one, greeting each other happily in a tongue Viktor couldn’t understand but felt the tones and timbre of warmth regardless.

It became rather simple, after listening to his fiancé’s (his _fiancé_ ) various and occasional descriptions and stories of these individuals, to put names to faces. The three grown women, identical in face and nearly so in dress, moving about the hospital room like it was second nature to hang out there with their parents and family friends, were the triplets Yuuri had known and loved since their birth. Viktor wondered how much of the yellowed pieces of art hanging beside Yuuri’s bed had been drawn by them or their children. The pretty middle-aged woman, grey-streaked hair tied back, hand-in-hand with a rather hunched and severe-looking gentlemen, were undoubtedly the Nishigoris, Yuuri’s oldest, most beloved friends—the rocks, he asserted, that kept him steady. Viktor blinked, recalling blankly that Yuuko was likely the one who found Yuuri after his fall, wondering how much of that morning she herself could recall, how much it must eat at her even now. Finally, almost fashionably late, was a woman much older than any of them, who could walk slowly on her own, retaining a significant amount of grace as she rejected all offers of help from anyone in the room as she stalked across the room only to stop at Viktor’s feet.

One eye squinted and one eye wide open, she seemed to glare at him, her gaze going all the way up his body until she reached his eyes. “Viktor Nikiforov,” she croaked, finally.

Viktor tried to smile at her, pulling his hat off out his respect for who was clearly Yuuri’s ballet teacher and sister-in-law. “Minako, correct?”

“He used to love you,” she said, a leer slowly creeping on her face. “He did! He used to have posters of you on his wall! He used to show me your videos after our ballet class—” She’d turned to bark at the rest of her companion, translating her own words back to them, but they all seemed to be rather sheepish in their replies. All except Phichit (fluent, as Viktor learned, in four languages), who burst out laughing, face turning red.

“They’re all like ‘We all know who he is, no one was going to say anything so we wouldn’t embarrass Yuuri!’” Phichit translated, wiping a stray tear from his eye. Yurio had tossed his head back as well now, eyes slammed shut, sniggering as he patted his own knee. “Minako, can’t you _chill_?”

Minako loomed over Yuuri on the bed, laugh ascending to something like a cackle, as she patted his chest almost roughly. “You did it, Yuuri! You’re marrying your childhood dreamboat! Don’t worry everyone, if Yuuri can do it, there’s still hope for the rest of us!” Yuuri’s face was something like a beet, his heart rate rising and rising.

“And to think, it could’ve been you and I, Yuuri, tying the knot,” Minako joked with a wink.

“Minako, it couldn’t have been you and Yuuri. It legally couldn’t be you and Yuuri—that’s what I was here for,” Phichit explained.

“He would’ve waited for me,” Minako shot a look towards Viktor before blowing out her cheeks out in a mock frustration. “What is it you’re waiting for now? Hold his hand.” Viktor was complicit and did as he was told, although admittedly unsure as to exactly why. Looking down at Yuuri, the snickers surrounding them faded into the background, and while they were the only part of Yuuri’s face that could move, his eyes looked like they too were laughing—with him, of course, not at him.

In the end, it was the last moment of airy lightness before the government official came in with the doctor and the commbox, serious and grave, and they all remembered what they were there for in the first place. After signing and initialing in every box of what was surely miles of indecipherable paperwork reduced to the small white screen, the ceremony itself was the sort of quick, impersonal interaction Viktor was good at. He understood very little of it, as none of it was interpreted back to him—not the delayed, robotic response from Yuuri’s commbox, nor the official’s drolling voice, nor the affirmative quips from Minako or Nishigori before they too, signed the officials' small screen. It wasn’t until the triplets clapped lightly that Viktor knew it was all said and done, that Yuuri was his lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health.

At least, until death did they part.

Phichit clasped a hand on Viktor’s arm, shoulders slumped. “The official is going to leave for a few moments, go get some coffee. He expects it to be enough time for us to, y’know,” Viktor nodded dutifully to that. “If you want to go ahead, whenever you’re ready.”

Not once had Viktor let go of Yuuri’s hand during the ceremony—what else, exactly, was he supposed to do? What was he meant to do now, gently stroking his thumb over the inert and wrinkled skin. Only the looming knowledge of what was to come felt certain. 

Ultimately, he decided on the phrase he had uttered many times over the last few months—a confirmation, a promise of sorts.

“I’ll see you Saturday, _dah_?”

Yuuri’s eyelids went heavy as they blinked back tears.

Viktor kissed his forehead and stepped back, slowly releasing Yuuri’s hand and letting Minako and the Nishigoris have their moments of goodbye as he signed his name off on the doctor’s small screen. It was a quick and quiet process, Yuuri’s transfer from here to beyond, but Viktor had a hard time bringing himself to look, regardless. In a motion of warmth he was sure he would never be allowed to bring up again, Yurio brought a steady hand to his back as Viktor snuck a glance at the tear rolling down Yuuri’s cheek.

It was over, and that was that. The doctor pulled a blanket up and over Yuuri’s still frame and closed eyes. Viktor gave his condolences to Nishigoris as they wept, to Minako as she sniffed at him indignantly, patting her eyes with a handkerchief before squeezing Viktor’s hand and pulling him in for a strong hug. Phichit, laugh wet and eyes shiny, in a slurring blur of words explained it was just another day on the job and he’d needed to stop at the bathroom before getting back to work and—Viktor stopped him on his way out, thanked him for everything, and wished him nothing but the very best in the future. This, much to Viktor’s distress, had only made Phichit crack and cry harder, bringing both Viktor and Yurio for a strong-armed hug on the way out.

Before long, it was pitch dark outside, a few lights outside in the town to keep them company, as Viktor and Yuri stood solitary in Yuuri’s old room, nothing left of him but the few colored art pieces made for him on the wall. Viktor rubbed his left thumb against his ring finger to find nothing, reminding himself this was still not the end, not the end at all.

“You alright?” asked Yurio, gruff and steady once they made it outside, waiting for their taxi to pull up.

“I feel alright. Do I not look alright?”

“I’m not talking physically, Viktor.” Oh no, Yurio used his actual name, that meant it was serious. “You got engaged, married, and were widowed all in the same day. Doing all of those in one year would be exhausting, let alone a few hours.”

Honestly, Viktor hadn’t given it much thought. He was tired, certainly, from traveling. It was also far past the time he preferred to be in bed with a good book as well. He’d done a lot of standing today, that kind of thing was always a strain on the knee that’d been replaced, as well has the knee that hadn't. He knew better, of course, that Yurio wasn’t just playing nurse right now as much as he was asking this as his friend, on behalf of his emotional state. It seemed silly, initially, not because they were both two snow-hardened Russian men, entirely polar and foreign to any vague sense of authentic, spoken emotional support, but because, well, Viktor wasn’t sad. At least, sad wasn’t the word for what he was feeling right now. He’d known sadness, longingness, melancholy, depression, desire—none of those described the zig-zags in his chest, bounding at the thought of today like Yurio’s legs when he wasn’t immediately occupied, or like Minako’s precocious energy that didn’t seem to match her frame or age. Be it joy or rage, gratitude or grief, nothing seemed to fit exactly what he thought _now_.

“Thank you for asking,” he simply replied.

“That’s not an answer,” said Yuri, lacking his normal bite as he gingerly helped Viktor into the vehicle, shutting the door behind him, remaining hushed and disarmed as the taxi traveled away from the hospital.

Earlier, Viktor had been mostly jet-lagged and bleary-eyed on their way to the hospital, and he’d felt like he’d missed up-close and personal view of Hasetsu’s seaside town. It was a tad disappointing upon realizing from Yuuri's floor high up in the building that he had missed it, when he had then been able to see it in all of its beauty, although several stories up. He hadn't, of course, considered that the route taken back to their lodgings for the night would cross right in front of the beach scene that Viktor had watched in awe a few hours before. This realization struck him as something poignant, as he settled, pleased, into his own understanding.

It wasn’t about what was happening, or what had happened, it was about what was to come, wasn’t it?

“Excuse me, can you stop?” Viktor asked, maybe too quietly, as Yurio's attention to to window had hardly faltered and driver had barely given him a glance.

The car continued along the seaside road; the feeling like something was boiling inside his rib cage was growing terribly urgent.

“Stop here! Stop the car!” Viktor said again, demanding as he tapped the driver on the shoulder, nearly launching himself out of his seat belt and barreling out of the car.

“Viktor," Yurio spat, the wind making him sound distant, although he was close enough to grab Viktor by the wrist. "What the _hell_ are you doing?”

“I just want to see the beach before we leave.”

Yurio's irritated expression released along with his grip on Viktor. He, instead of yelling, simply handed him his cane. “You keep this up, old man, you’re going to make me as bald as you very soon!” Yuri called, granted, Viktor had already made it up to the curb, hobbling as fast as he could to get a better view of the shoreline.

_"Without this place, you know, I don't know if I ever would've met someone like you."_

He almost tripped over the end of the pavement sidewalk, just before the sand, knowing that he no longer had the kind of physical prowess it would walk along the beach without sinking into the sand. At least in this body, despite all it knew of places where the earth met the ocean. Looking out across the water, listening to the soft crash of the waves, it wasn’t his home of St. Petersburg that immediately came to mind at all. The call of the seagulls, the black of the night sky, the stars twinkling and visible as the last warmth the salty fall breeze had to offer hit him just so, he thought instead of what another beach, or rather, that person who was undoubtedly sitting on that beach, floating in the cloud, finally finding a taste of that eternal relief. No, Viktor couldn’t help but feel like the Hasetsu seaside looked, smelled, felt a little bit like San Junipero instead. And _God_ , did he finally have something to look forward to.

—SATURDAY NIGHT—

He technically didn’t need a vehicle in here—the technology made it possible to just sort of, well, appear places—but what else was Viktor going to tie tin cans to and show off?

Viktor stood up on his seat of his car, resting his arms on the roof. They’d given Yuuri a small, stone-front cottage on the outskirts of town, atop a cliff covered in the pale, long grass, standing tall above the crashing oceans.  “Oh come now, Yuuri,” he started sarcastically, and Yuuri’s head whipped around from where his hands had been wrestling wrist-deep in dirt and flowers, hair looking a little longer than normal as it flew and twisted in the wind. “You didn’t even dress up for me?”

Yuuri looked back and forth between himself and Viktor, who’d come prepared with a picnic basket and flowers of his own, in a pink suit tied up top with a black bow tie. Rolling his eyes, he changed in a snap—he looked straight out of the prom, hair slicked back with his powder blue suit, ruffly button up shirt, and horrendously ugly tie. Thriving on whatever vaguely offended look Viktor had plastered on his face, Yuuri did a model turn, strutting and laughing on his way to the car.

“That better?” he asked with a smirk, breaking into a full grin as Viktor shook his head.

“Your fashion wounds me—it’s so ugly, but you’re so beautiful.”

“Your sad attempts at flirting wound me—shut up and drive, Nikiforov.”

“ _Nikiforov-Katsuki_.”

They drove with the windows down and the car speakers turned all the way up across town, past Celestino’s and the Ferris wheel, to a secluded cove just behind the park—out of sight, unless some locals got nosy and decided to venture this far down along the shoreline. Yuuri, with far more confidence than usual, suggested they get their first dance out of the way, because well, the sooner the reception was over, the sooner the _honeymoon_ started. They'd gotten a few layers off, sure—the jackets were resting in the sand, sleeves and pant legs rolled messily, ties undone and buttons unclasped— but somewhere between a bottle of wine and two bento boxes Viktor didn’t remember packing, they still found themselves standing and swaying to the music coming from the car stereo, close and leisurely in the headlights, long after the sun descending and the bright full moon filled the sky.

“So,” Viktor smirked into Yuuri’s hair, “you really used to have posters of me up on your wall?”

“Oh my god, I’m so embarrassed!” Yuuri tried hiding his face in the undone collar of Viktor’s button-up; Viktor tried to tilt his head to get a better view.

“Don’t be! Please don’t be!” he assured, trying not to laugh. “You just never told me that!”

“I didn’t realize it was you when we first met, it’d been years, you know?” Yuuri groaned and as his face deeper into Viktor’s neck. “And by the time I did, I didn’t want to make you feel weird!”

“You know it wasn’t when we first met,” Yuuri whipped his head to look up at Viktor, “we did meet before that. I knew it! I called it!”

“What, when?”

“The banquet, at the Grand Prix Final in Sochi? I don’t remember the year, but it would’ve been your last—” Viktor kicked himself before he could finish with _before your accident_ —“season.”

“I don’t remember that banquet at all…” Yuuri muttered, biting into his lower lip. “Any of it. I don’t remember _any_ of it.”

“You were drunk, my dear,” Viktor chuckled. “I definitely was too, but not at your knock-down, black out level. I didn’t realize until I found a video of it, who you were, and why you’d seemed so familiar to me at times.”

Yuuri’s face went an ungodly shade of white, his eyebrows flying up into his hairline. “ _You found a video of it?”_

“No, no, no, stop—Yuuri, it’s okay,” he hadn’t meant to laugh so much, not while Yuuri was set on burying his face as deep as it would go into the fabric across Viktor’s shoulders with a mortified moan. “It was charming, you were so charming.”

_“And we can build this thing together, stand this storm forever, nothings gonna stop us now~”_

“So how much did Phichit wind up telling you?” asked Yuuri, in a way that made Viktor think he was dreading an answer.

“Enough. How you got where you were, how you got where you are now, how he was involved,” he exhaled, the body stepping in time with his went from jumpy to relaxed. “I’m sorry about your accident, Yuuri.”

“It,” Yuuri took a deep breath as he nodded one single time, not looking at Viktor in the eye as much as he looked at the freckles scattered faintly along his nose and looked up at the stars scattered like paint across the sky. “It doesn’t matter now,” he said, decisively. “I mean, look where we are—it’s real!”

“I mean, real enough, I suppose,” Viktor pulled Yuuri in closer, feeling a twinge in his cheeks that was perhaps, a bit fabricated in the face of Yuuri’s wonder.

Yuuri didn’t stop looking up at the sky, although his gaze turned something rascally. “Oh come on, Nikiforov—it feels the same as it did, it looks like it would on the outside…” Before Viktor could reply, Yuuri pulled away far enough to kick up some sand in his direction, splatting and sticking to his pink suit pants. Before long, they were chasing one enough around in circles by the shore line, trying to ruin one another’s suits, laughing and laughing when Viktor got Yuuri around the waist and began to carry him towards the water. Water up to his calves, he tried for the _1, 2, 3, Swing_ method, but Yuuri’s strong legs were wrapped like vines around Viktor’s middle and would not budge. Instead, clutching Viktor by the fabric of his shoulders, close to weeping with laughter, Yuuri nearly dragged him down with him. “It’s real! It’s all so real!” he cried, so gracious and joyful that he melted Viktor’s cynicism, or rather, got him off guard so effectively that Yuuri was able to splash some water up, hitting him square in the face.

Viktor preemptively opened his eyes before rubbing the water away, feeling an unexpected sting from the salt water, reminiscent of the times he’d made the same mistake as he might’ve in his earliest years of youth. It was funny—a hundred precious times he’d been to the beach with Yuuri, and not once had the salt ever hit his eyes.

“Are you alright?” Yuuri asked, concerned and almost serious.

Viktor braced a smile, chuckling through the last of the sharp sensation as he conceded, “I’m fine, but you were certainly right, it feels the same as it did on the outside.”

Hand-in-hand, they walked back up onto the beach to dry off, Yuuri beaming the entire way. “I just, it feels so real. I feel so grateful to be here,” he stammered, a bit embarrassed, after noticing Viktor’s inquisitive look in his direction, throwing a soft white towel around his shoulders. “I’m going to miss it.”

_"In the day nothing matters, it's the night time that flatters~"_

Like the rush of blood after a kick to the gut or seeing stars after a knock to the head, Viktor’s vision instantaneously clouded over, nausea and confusion flooding his head instead. He was entirely alone in this moment, clearly, as Yuuri watched the waves roll in and out longingly, but _content_.

“I—I,” the sudden change in his voice made Yuuri look at him, perplexed. “ _Miss_ it?”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on staying,” Yuuri shook his head, as though it was the simplest thing in his still in-tact world.

“’Wasn’t planning on staying’?” Viktor sputtered, any sense of control slipping through his fingers in lieu of the vertigo. He wasn’t sure where to look, how to hold himself, how to breathe. “What exactly was it that you were planning on?”

Yuuri’s eyebrows furrowed deeper, warm brown eyes searching and scanning him and Viktor felt so, so exposed. “We talked about this? My sister, remember? I came here to find her…”

“Right, right, of course, but you haven’t found her yet…”

“She died before she could cross over,” Yuuri said weakly; Viktor stopped his breath, thinking back on the hours logged in looking for her, on everything Yuuri had ever told him about her, and he couldn’t help but feel like he was also grieving, sharing the pain that lay dull and washed out over Yuuri’s glassy eyes. “Phichit told me earlier this week, I thought maybe he’d mentioned it to you.”

“No, he didn’t. I’m so sorry,” Viktor whispered, not knowing what words, exactly, could be strung together as something enough. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

But Yuuri reigned himself in and sighed, steady and secure. “I mourned already, long before I thought maybe we’d have the chance to, I dunno, actually walk and talk and be together without you know, a commbox or a hospital room or anything. I got my hopes up despite what I really knew was probably true. And I don’t regret that, because look where it got me,” he gestured with distant eyes to the sky, to the ocean, spinning light on his toes until his vision rested again on Viktor. “But you know, if she’s not here, I can’t really stay. That’s not fair.”

 Viktor sat against the hood of the car, arms coming in close to rest in lap, towel draped over him almost haphazardly. “I don’t understand,” he said, after a moment of deliberation. “I don’t understand how it’s not fair. At all.”

“My parents, my sister lived simply because of me. I took up so much of their time, their money, and even then, they wouldn’t do things they felt I would be missing out on. I said I didn’t want to just wither and die after my accident, they did everything they could to help me, loved me still when nothing worked,” Yuuri ventured a few hesitant steps closer to Viktor, looking, for a scene in space in time, his age. “And then my parents died before San Junipero was even an option for them, and Mari died so suddenly and didn’t get the second chance. How can I stay here now, where I’ve done nothing to deserve this my entire life and I get the full opportunity to restart?”

“Yuuri,” Viktor tried to reach for Yuuri’s hand, “it was the opportunity you never even _had_.”

But Yuuri recoiled instead of placing his hand back where it fit within Viktor’s, his whole figure folding in on itself. “I didn’t have much out there, Viktor, but people cared about me. I’m sorry, but I can’t just throw them to the wind because they never did that to me.”

“All of those people out there were rooting for you to get _here_. _I_ was rooting for you to end up here—how could you be so selfish?” Viktor’s voice cracked and immediately regretted the harsh bitterness that crept into his voice as he watched Yuuri’s face threaten to crumble.

He hadn’t noticed, honestly, that he’d begun to break first.

“Are you crying?” Yuuri sounded dumbfounded, shocked, like Viktor’s tears were mystical or strange. “You’re the one who said meeting on the outside was our last chance. I thought you didn’t even want to stay here?”

“When I thought your supposed marriage was the only thing keeping you on the outside, that’s when I said I didn’t want to stay here—”

“You could be happy here, without me. You could have _fun_.”

“I said I didn’t want to stay here _until…_ ” Viktor trailed off, not trusting himself to say much more, watching instead the dawning of realization flash across his husband’s face. “And you _agreed_ with me. Not only agreed with me, but _married_ me. We’re married, Yuuri.”

There it was—the “m” word. They hadn’t exactly reveled nor recoiled in the word, they just hadn’t used it all night—Viktor, feeling a sense of warmth, thought the glimmering, matching golden rings on their fingers had been enough. Enough to shove down the doubt of “’til death do you part”, at least, until now. It didn’t count in their circumstance, surely. It couldn’t.

“Oh…I see. Where you’re coming from, I mean,” Yuuri said, apologetic; Viktor wiped a few stray tears. He’d nearly relaxed into a steady heartbeat of _we can fix this, we can fix this_ until Yuuri gathered his thoughts and tentatively continued. “I’m sorry, Viktor, it was a nice thought, but you and I both know this was just a gesture.”

What.

“ _A gesture?_ ”

No.

“Yeah,” Yuuri furrowed his brows again, like he was explaining the simplest of phenomenon under the sun. “A sign of good will, sympathy, pity—what have you.”

“Yuuri, you can’t possibly believe that I _pity_ you,” Viktor was back on his feet now, despite his legs shaking; Yuuri’s eyes grew as he went almost entirely still. “I haven’t sought you out for months on end as a _gesture_ , I didn’t come to Japan as a _gesture_ , I didn’t exchange vows as a _gesture_ , and you did not give me a ring as a _gesture._ Where did you even get such an idea—”

“Viktor, you’re wonderful, really wonderful, and everything we’ve done together has,” Yuuri took a sharp inhale, “changed me. Made me better. I’ll always cherish what this was, but you should keep going. You can't just quit.”

“How can you tell me to keep going while you pass on?” Yuuri’s lips pursed into a single, fine line as Viktor’s stomach churned, reducing his voice to an unsteady whisper. “I spent my life _alone_ , Yuuri. I know that’s probably hard to hear, and selfish of me to say, but my life was never what you thought it was.”

“And people here look up to you too! If you just stopped to appreciate how much you inspire others—”

“But _you_ inspired me!”

“People love you here, Viktor.”

“Do they? Do they really? Did they ever? They aren’t real, Yuuri! You were scared of the Chacked? This whole place is the Chacked!” Viktor’s hands flew as he spoke, the towel falling off his shoulders, Yuuri’s face growing more contorted and pained with every word. “Everyone here—they’re all lost fucks doing anything to feel something in a place where nothing. Really. Matters.”

“So _that's_ how you really feel. Those are our friends—Chris, Mila, Sara, Leo, Isabella, even JJ,” Yuuri shook his head, as he turned very suddenly from pleading to somewhat cold, and worse, angry. “Come to think of it, I only know _one_ person who fits that description.”

What came next was like the carnival again, the beautiful woman tied to a spinning wheel as her partner threw daggers at her, very narrowly missing her chest each time. Who exactly the woman on the wheel was in this scenario, surely neither would agree, knowing full well they both had been taking aim and they both had a few scratches from the rapid fire.

“That’s not fair.”

“Viktor, please be honest with yourself: forever with me sounds like—”

“Why do you think I’ve done all this, for a fling?”

“It isn’t you, it’s—”

“Why do you feel like you don’t deserve it?”

“Viktor, you’re not being fair—”

“Pity, Yuuri? Do you really think so low of yourself, so low of me, to interpret us as anything other than lo—”

“For the first time ever, I get to decide! I get to decide when I live and when I die and I deserve that!” Yuuri wasn’t a shouter, but here he was going hoarse with his cries, shaking hands curling into fists as he started to sob. Viktor watched him rattle and heave, the reality of their narratives hitting him at full speed, square in the chest. “You can’t give me a sales pitch on how peachy keen forever could be if I don’t want it, and if you don’t really believe it!”

The wheel stopped and the show was over, guests were leaving the stands, as there was nothing left to see. Viktor had tried and Yuuri had been honest and it was no divine mystery to understand that the dusty baggage sitting behind the curtain, perhaps, had been the final knife thrown. At the end of the day, they were both tired and old and so much more than these avatars had afforded them—for the first time, Viktor truly felt his age, disgusted with this young body he’d inhabited, and what a heavy burden it suddenly became. The few feet apart they’d kept while arguing felt more like continents; Viktor did not close that gap to wipe Yuuri’s wet, defeated face.

“Fine. You were right,” Viktor murmured; Yuuri looked up in shock as his own tears came to a halt. “I pity you, Yuuri. You’re right. I pitied you before, I pity you now, and I’ll probably pity you for forever, if that’s the truth you want to keep.”

“Who can even wrap their mind around forever?” said Yuuri as he picked up their dirty jackets, taking his own in hand, as well as handing Viktor’s back to him without making eye contact. “We should probably just end this now, before it’s too—”

“Whose program was it?” Viktor asked suddenly, letting the conversation turn towards a chill down the spine and goosebumps along their arms. Yuuri shuddered on an unsteady exhale despite the heat still lingering in the air, gaze rising from the footsteps they’d made, dancing in the sand.

“ _What?_ ” he nearly croaked, like the question had drained him, dried him up. 

“Phichit told me when you had your accident, you were practicing someone else's program.” Viktor repeated, slowly. “Who's program were you practicing?”

For as long as he lived, if he lived long at all, Viktor would likely never forget the look of helplessness, of fear, of shame, of pain that wrapped itself and constricted around Yuuri’s throat as he tried to choke out an answer. His arms went limp, the bottom hems of the jackets landing once again in the sand. It was like he was trying to look everywhere but Viktor and when he did finally manage a glance, the answer was clear and obvious.

“Please don’t make me answer that.”

Viktor tore off before Yuuri could say anything else, immediately regretting this—not Yuuri, _never Yuuri_ , but this tug-of-war game that gave him rope burn on his weakened hands. The storm in his chest and behind his eyes conjured up images of everything Viktor had held dear these last few weeks, letting them crash upon his consciousness like waves in a thunder storm. Getting stuck together at the top of the ferris wheel, laughing but still gripping the railing until their knuckles turned white. Skating and winning and skating for fun, the two of them growing breathless and careless, exuberant and neon, closer and closer. Yuuri’s body pressed flush against his own, a thick warmth bubbling in the bottom of his stomach with every gasp of his name. Seeing Yuuri appreciate everything he’d been faced with as though it was all entirely new and unseen—the sand in his toes and the breeze in his hair and moonlight bursting into the back room of Viktor’s beach house like it had a show to put on, forcing itself into every corner until they seemed to be drenched in the night sky. Yuuri and Viktor, Viktor and Yuuri—suddenly were two distant figures in Viktor’s recollection, characters would live happily together in memory, but not in actuality. It couldn’t all be over, the waves just kept coming, the waves always kept coming, forever and ever—but what was a beach when the waves stopped?

Viktor dug deep, trying call to the front of his consciousness his programs from that season, the only one generating any recollection being the _Stammi Vicino_ free skate. The system did a its job, a good one at that, of plopping Viktor smack in the middle of an open, dimly-lit roller rink, the first light and airy piano chords pressed and plinked from the jukebox in the corner. The choreography returned in bits and pieces, but returned nonetheless, and in no time at all, Viktor was sailing across the empty rink like it was a battlefield to charge into, and this was the last combat of the war.

Over and over and over. He kept trying and failing, how many jumps was it going to take before he ran himself into the ground? He wanted to know. He wanted to know what it felt like. He wanted it to hurt. Almost distant, he could hear someone calling his name—Viktor, Viktor, Viktor—with increasing desperation, but as was the consensus on his entire life, nothing came between him and the rink.

When he wasn’t thinking about it his ankle rolled on a landing, and Viktor fell flat on the polished wooden floor. His pain switch was turned all the way down, he remembered, and despite his ankle or the salty sea water or the unnerving and relentless grip around his chest, this wouldn’t be an ice rink. Upon arriving in San Junipero, he was grateful to no longer see ice, but now, that’s all he wanted it to be—to know what it was like to lay with the bitter cold on his cheek for hours until someone, anyone could come kick him out. He wanted the devil he knew, he wanted a pain he couldn’t just ignore, or leave behind, and he wanted it to be bad.

_Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me._

Instead, a soft touch reached for his back, hesitantly stroking up and down, leaving droplets of regret behind to soak beneath the skin—Viktor got what he wanted, in the end didn’t he? He felt terrible. Stupid and terrible.

“Viktor,” still sweet, still tender, if also worried sick, Yuuri’s voice melted all visions of ice. “Are you alright?”

Viktor heaved as he turned his head to meet Yuuri’s tear-stained gaze, “Yeah, I’m fine,” he whispered in return. “Hold on, just wait for m—”

And then Viktor was gone. The clock had been ticking and struck midnight without either of them realizing how much time had been left, leaving Yuuri on his hands and knees in the silence of the empty rink.

—TUESDAY AFTERNOON—

Viktor was not stupid, unfortunately, and could tell when he was being tip-toed around.

Dr. Lilia, Monday morning, brought some news that Viktor had truthfully, only half heard. He’d only needed to hear half when he had a nurse like Yurio, who’d had every word of the good doctor’s prognosis etched onto his face, whether he’d intended it to be or not. And while Viktor’s heart pleaded and ached that Yuuri wouldn’t decide to pass over, to leave him behind for good by the upcoming Saturday, that he’d have one last chance to make things right, he knew there was a growing probability he himself wouldn’t make it to Saturday, which naturally, left him with a decision he’d so been hoping he wouldn’t have to make at all. San Junipero or, quite literally, _bust_?

“It’s not because of the plane ride, right?” Viktor adjusted the blanket that covered his lap and legs, coughing the wracking cough he thought had been gone for good. “I’d feel bad if it was because of the flight.”

“No, idiot. I wouldn’t have taken you if it was the flight was going to kill you. And why are you acting like you would’ve felt bad at all?” Yurio griped, as he rolled Viktor towards the great window of the dining hall, his usual spot in front of the chess set.

“Mmm,” Viktor hummed, slow and deep. “You’re right—no use pretending.”

That had made Yurio laugh, a needed relief for him, Viktor observed, as he’d been particularly abrasive that day, which really meant he was wounded at the idea of these being their last days together. Knowing Yuri—all he’d been through in his much shorter life—he would probably resent Viktor for dying, a trait Viktor somewhat admired, if at least found somewhat cute. And that sentiment alone would add another weight the scale that determined his course of action, wouldn’t it? 

_“That daydream plays over and over in the back of my mind when I’m sitting back on the outside...these last few weeks, it’s gotten a lot, lot harder to think of refusing it.”_

It may seem petty, but in the end, it was what tipped the scale just enough. Because on one hand, he could let himself die as he'd planned, abolished of any responsibility attached to the person he'd become in exchange for whatever came next. On the other hand, he could cross back over to San Junipero, find Yuuri, and hopefully make things right, despite the running chance that that wouldn't actually happen, and he'd wind up dying anyway. Any other small detail went one way or the other, twisting and turning him back and forth, back and forth, run to or run away, _run to or run away_. 

He noticed, on an off-beat in their game, that Yurio was staring at him with a reluctant amount of concern. He'd taken too long thinking, perhaps, on his turn. 

"Well?" asked Yuri, expectantly.

If Viktor didn’t truly die, but rather, made the active choice to live, for the first time in his whole life, then Yurio certainly had no reason to resent him.

“Well,” Viktor said, wiping his chin with a thin, wobbling hand. “I suppose I’m ready.”

Yurio piqued an eyebrow, shooting him a look that was infinitely smaller and softer than any look he’d ever offered Viktor before. “Ready for what, Viktor?”

“Ready for the rest of it,” he replied, cornering Yuri's king in a checkmate, all the while focused on his right hand that laid resting on the table, naked without a ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Track list!
> 
> Yuuri and Viktor listen to two songs on the beach: "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Jefferson Starship and "Self Control" by Laura Branigan
> 
> I live solely off of your reviews


	5. we'll make heaven a place on earth

—ONE YEAR LATER—

There were dogs in San Junipero. Really.  People always forgot that was an option for them here in the afterlife, but San Junipero residents could get a dog if they really wanted one. Old habits dying hard, if they died at all, Viktor wound up choosing a poodle. A poodle that he ultimately named Makkachin, just like his first dog, because she had a very similar droopy face and long tongue. A poodle that, at the present moment, had bolted off without her leash and was, hopefully, not underneath a tire or drowning in an ocean or any of the other terrible, terrible demises that came to mind. Whether or not dogs could die as hard as his habits in San Junipero, he wasn’t sure, but Viktor had always been something of a creative.

Mila and Sara had taken to searching the beach, Otabek and Leo were searching the park, Minami was skating up and down the southside, and Minako assured she was keeping a good eye out for Makkachin on the off-chance she wandered into Celestino’s during her shift. Viktor, sprinting away from the bar, past the stacked television pyramid and the dinor through throes of friends trying to enjoy the warm, sunny day, was beginning to wonder if this whole escapade would be fruitless when he collided with another body coming around the curb.

A pair of blue glasses went flying and cracked on the road, mangled and shattered, at least until their owner reached to pick them up and they instantly were coded back to their wearable default, but Viktor didn't stop holding his breath. Not until they were slipped back up a nose and adjusted on the bridge; Yuuri Katsuki blinked at him, once, twice, three times. 

Yuuri had waited until the following Saturday for him to come back, waiting on the steps of his beach house as Viktor pulled up for what would be his final five-hour trial run. When he had rehearsed in his mind what he wanted to say to Yuuri, it was admittedly much more dramatic, tragic romance movie finale and not at all the calm, but loaded “there’s a contest down at Celestino’s tonight, I was wondering if you wanted to do some skating. With me.” Viktor's prepared speech had been thrown out the window—any need for the tears and the theatrics and the begging was never there to begin with. They’d talked it all over later, of course, sooner than midnight, and long enough to agree on the future, or perhaps, lack thereof.

“Any luck?” asked Yuuri, not looking at Viktor but instead, scanning the scene for their fluffy companion.

“None at all,” Viktor pouted and moaned. “What if she’s dead?”

“Viktor—”

“People drive like _maniacs_ here. _No seatbelts_.”

“Vik—”

“Makkachin’s just a baby—God, what if she’s in some ditch, scared half to dea—”

Yuuri placed a firm hand over Viktor's chest, right over his heart, giving him a confident nod. “We’ll find her," he said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. 

Viktor hadn’t expected, well, any of it—what he experienced when he passed. He’d been uploaded and downloaded back and forth from San Junipero time and time again, but it never quite felt _right_ with him. Maybe it was the cognitive dissonance of being young and fast and beautiful when he’d grown so accustomed to being sore and hard of hearing and tired. Maybe it was the nature of the cloud, being an entirely different beast from life on planet Earth. Maybe it was all him, swimming in his own head, too critical, too alone. Because when he did pass—he was _him_ , _this_ was him, and _this_ was his future. For forever or not, something felt whole the final time he was uploaded to the cloud, although he was sure that the cause of that sensation was aware that _he_ might’ve had something to do with it.

“Yuuri! Viktor! Look who I found!” In synchronicity, the pair spun quicker than tops, giving an inhale and an exhale in relief once they saw JJ followed by Isabella, who was holding in her arms one sweet, one deeply clueless Makkachin.

If Viktor nearly pushed Yuuri out of the way and onto the street to meet Isabella as she walked, he certainly didn’t notice. Yuuri and their friends surely didn’t mention it as they began to reappear, one by one, circling him as he cradled Makkachin in some strange cloud of denim, hairspray, and bangles.

“You guys know there’s a _search feature_ , right?”

“Well, you didn’t find him, wise guy. _I did_.”

“Actually, I did.”

“There’s so much sand in my shoes right now—totally grody.”

“I got lost, honestly.”

“There’s a _map feature_.”

“Can we go skate, now?” Strong affirmatives rang through the party at Minami's suggestion, and it was almost entirely decided among the group, sans two distracted lovebirds and their precious poodle. 

Nearly halfway up the sidewalk, Isabella had spun on her heel, a look of knowing spread across her sunny face. “You guys coming?”

“Ah—" Viktor and Yuuri looked at one another, down at Makkachin, then back at the group. "We'll catch up with you later, it's been a pretty big day, so far."

Another thing no one expected about the afterlife—there was variety. There were still big days and small days. Days where Makkachin got off her leash and ran halfway across town. Days where Yuuri and Viktor did nothing all day but lay down in their bed, in the sand, in the tall, pale grass. Days where they did nothing but skate, the sounds of metal on ice reminiscent somewhere in the back of their consciousness, muted in the rolling plastic of wheels on wood panels. Days where Viktor looked in the mirror and was surprised to only a slight crease under his eyes, a strong, hearty chest, and a calmness he'd never, ever had at this age, or maybe any age. Days where Yuuri expected a phantom paralysis, expected to see nothing but the ceiling all day, and was pleasantly reminded that there was a whole world to see, and someone to carry him if he wasn't sure if he could make it. There were things to look forward to and things that were less exciting and a way out. sure, but _so_ many reasons to stay as well. 

"How is it that we never quite make it home when we say that's where we're going?" Viktor mused—they made it, in a comfortable silence, to the beach at least, before Makkachin found a stick she liked.

"We're easily distracted, I think," Yuuri replied, effortlessly tossing the piece of wood yards away. Makkachin, in her waning enthusiasm, followed suit immediately. "I mean, we are _here_ , after all."

"Here?"

"San Junipero. It's a good distraction, I think."

Viktor inhaled the salty, fresh breeze wafting off from the ocean, the sun turning the sky pink. "A good distraction from what?"

"Somewhere on the other side, my body is ash in an urn, side-by-side with my sister, my parents, my grandparents. Your body is six feet under, halfway across the world, in a coffin in the ground," Yuuri slid his right hand, unexpectedly, into Viktor's, the cool touch of the ring tender against the warmth of his skin. "But somehow, we're both here, still going."

A group of seagulls flew overhead and disappeared into the light of the sun, their calls akin to a melody. Makkachin returned the stick at a lazy trot, so tired she fell at their feet, practically begging to be carried home. 

"Are you alright with that?" asked Viktor, his dog cradled like a baby in one hand, his husband's gentle grasp in the other.

Yuuri would be alright with it if that's all there was to it, you see. It wasn't just that they were _still_ going. It’s not so much that they never stopped, they just simply kept trying. Day in and day out, come what inconsequential problem and novel high may. As it stood, no midnight could drive them apart and no final words could wrap up their story but themselves. They had that, and they had each other, and day in and day out, the choice seemed simple to Yuuri. Just as the wheels of their skates rolled on and on and the music never lost its beat or rhythm and the waves continued to crash and wade on the shoreline, they simply _kept_ going. Viktor and Yuuri kept going.

A car drove by full of whooping party-goers—newbies, surely—whose speakers were blasting a familiar favorite. Yuuri watched Viktor's expression turn from inquisitive and vulnerable, to bright and smiling, answering his own question with a response Yuuri couldn't have formulated any better himself. 

_"They say in heaven, love comes first. We'll make heaven a place on earth."_

This time, they made it a few more steps home before Yuuri had to step up onto his tip-toes to kiss Viktor like they had all the time in the world. 

 

After all, what is more compelling than a story that never ends?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote folks!
> 
> I'm so grateful if you decided to stick with me til the end! Now that it's all said and done, tell me what you think, maybe tell a friend, maybe tell 20 friends, or consider shooting me a message over at punkmomsclub.tumblr.com! As for me, I have another fic planned right around the corner here and I hope to see y'all there.
> 
> Thank you!!!


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